


my fingers in your eyes

by ggotguk



Category: NCT (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band), 여자친구 | GFriend (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Complete, Explicit Language, F/M, Family, Firsts, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, School, Underage Smoking, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29535699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggotguk/pseuds/ggotguk
Summary: For a privileged Chinese student, the move to South Korea brings shitty pressure and even shittier expectations. So why the hell is some ratty boy reading classical literature under a cherry blossom tree?
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	my fingers in your eyes

  
  


***

It seemed that no matter what country it was, Autumn always felt the same. White sun breaking through grey clouds onto dulled golds, chilled air settling something into your heart which can't be placed even after all of your lived years. It made Sicheng want to be sick. 

Apparently it wasn't just the apprehension of starting school either, since it turned out that here school didn't start in September like it did in China. Though he should've grown out of that apprehension too, as his mother insisted every new Autumn. But he hadn't. He'd still used his free period to lock himself into a cubicle and cry his eyes out until the next bell went. No one even came in. No one was looking for him either. So Sicheng had a long time to stare into the mirror and contemplate how ugly he looked.

The uniform which his grandfather had so generously bought for him really captured the spirit of the place, various shades of block grey. It was way too small. His fingernails were way too short too. The signet ring, precisely cut edges brandishing the single syllable of his surname, always hung loose around his finger. Years ago his grandfather had told him he'd grow into it. Sicheng smiled. He couldn't put his finger on when he'd become so insecure of himself.

Strange how kids had acknowledged that this was all Sicheng had to offer and still decided to become his friend. Probably pitied him. The first to approach him was Hong Jisoo from his business class. With his neatly parted hair and well-spoken clarity, Sicheng supposed he was exactly the kind of person his parents wanted him to make friends with. That and the fact that Jisoo had taken Mandarin classes alongside his studies for years was a huge weight off of Sicheng's shoulders. Jisoo had then introduced him to Jeonghan, a social sciences student, who seemed more reserved but no less sharp. 

To an outside observer, everything was going perfectly, really. But no one ever saw Sicheng taking every moment he could spare to hide himself away from it all. Because the bell always rang. Sicheng always composed himself. Then he always fell back into the routine which his birth had carved out for him.   
  


  
***  
  


"But primarily business, you said." 

"Ah yeah, sorry. My parents want me to be a... manager or invester of some sort."

"Yep." Jisoo nodded. Sicheng would kill to possess his confidence. While his hands were rooted in his pockets and his eyes were pinned forward as he escorted Sicheng to the lockers, Jisoo easily plucked precise words to get straight to his point, even in Chinese. On Sicheng's other side, Jeonghan didn't seem to feel excluded by the language barrier, writing fast hangul in a handheld notepad, seemingly in his own little world. Yeah, Sicheng's parents would love them. "Did you come here on a scholarship, then?"

"God, no." Jisoo cocked a brow at him now, waiting for an elaboration which Sicheng hadn't anticipated. "Just- my parents thought Seoul was best." 

"Right, of course," Jisoo said. With his brain so wrapped around trying to say the right thing, Sicheng hadn't noticed that they'd already reached the lockers, quickly getting out the key which he'd been issued upon arrival this morning. His locker was stacked high with new books, the content of which he should realistically already know two thirds of if he wanted to do decently in the final exams. Lumping them into his arms, he stepped back to idly watch Jeonghan make a definitive full stop and flip the cover back atop his notebook.

"Where do you go after school, Sicheng?" Jeonghan's sudden Korean had Sicheng's brain struggling to quickly translate. 

"After school? Uh- home?" 

"Huh. Is it far?" Sicheng shook his head, mostly because Jeonghan spoke too fast for him to understand. "Jisoo does his extracurricular here but I can walk you." 

Sicheng smiled and tried not to nod too enthusiastically, letting Jeonghan lead the way after murmuring goodbye to an occupied Jisoo. 

The school itself was just another massive, drab establishment, though Korea was definitely prettier than anywhere he'd been in China. As if his parents cared about aesthetics. Korean streetsides were so loud compared to China: bright hangul banners in offensive colours like a magazine collage intertwined with wiggly cherry blossoms, veins which held everything together. Even in the centre of metropolitan Seoul, those trees were everywhere, though it'd clearly been months since they were in full bloom. So somehow, rather than attempting to decipher what Jeonghan was saying to him, Sicheng tried to imagine how pretty it must've been in the Spring. He hoped he'd stay here long enough to see blooming day when it next came around.

Suddenly, fingers around his tricep lurched Sicheng from his reverie as Jeonghan dragged him down a side road, away from the path they'd been following. 

"What's wrong?" Sicheng coughed out.

"Nothing, just went the wrong way." Jeonghan didn't let go of his arm until they were deep into an alleyway, the flamboyance shallowing out into dusky greys laced with smoke. A dead area. 

Fluorescent colour struck Sicheng's eyes once the mouth opened again, cherry blossoms scattered everywhere. It looked like the exact same road they'd diverted from. He glanced at a nonchalant Jeonghan but didn't say a word. Jeonghan knew Seoul better, after all.

Perhaps because Sicheng got along better with talkative people he should have foreseen the awkwardness between them. While Jeonghan asked questions, he didn't even pretend to be interested in the answers that Sicheng was giving, instead either jotting things down in his notepad or muttering to himself. Though Sicheng supposed he should be grateful that people were at least trying to be his friend. 

"You go this way, right?" Jeonghan mumbled after a while, gesturing down another side road which looked no different from the rest. 

"Ah, probably?" Sicheng replied. He'd only arrived yesterday and had been too pumped up with anxiety to memorise the route.

"You do," Jeonghan stated plainly. Sicheng nodded in acknowledgement and Jeonghan just blinked heavy-lidded eyes at him. "See you at school, then." 

"Yeah, see you." Jeonghan already had his back to him. Rather than heading home, Sicheng watched his retreating form for a minute. 

God, Sicheng's bag was killing his back. Unlike China, school in South Korea started in March, when cherry blossoms were in full bloom. No one had told him that when he'd first arrived, expecting to only have a month's worth to learn. He had a lot to catch up on. 

Yet his legs wouldn't move. Bag suddenly so heavy that it pinned him to the floor. No one but his grandfather was home, as it had always been. Letting himself in and going straight to his room to study. There was nothing better to do. It pained him to acknowledge that Jisoo did all of that with extracurricular on top, that Jeonghan just seemed to be on top of everything with no objections. His eyes trailed down the distinct Seoul road. Teeth in his lip, Sicheng spun his signet ring around his middle finger once, twice.

Glancing back down the path to school, he realised that anything was inviting in comparison to the pages and pages of squares and circles in his bag which were waiting to be absorbed. He really should be getting home.

Just this once.

No capitalist infrastructure. No permanently lingering fog. Just aggressive liveliness. Each new building so bold and raw they became hands reaching out to grab him. Atom-people passed through freely, not caring that an alien was in their midst. What would it look like in the dark? In the rain, when the colours washed through in streams and created an underworld? But most intriguing of all, each time his eye caught on another tangle of branches he wondered what it would look like in the Spring. 

Because one thing that every nonchalant person shared was purpose. Even being here less than a day, Sicheng had noticed that everyone in Seoul was here for a reason. Whether they were quickly pushing past to get to a workplace or a timetabled event or home to their family, or following orders in specific uniforms, or taking pictures with expensive cameras, or tapping away hurriedly at laptop keys, everyone here was in Seoul because it had to be Seoul. As Sicheng walked along the line of pretty cherry blossoms protruding from the jigsaw pavement, running his fingers along their bark, he imagined how the people transformed when the mellow pink hazed over all of the modernity. When purpose didn't matter, if even for a week.

He lurched. In his distraction, Sicheng's foot had collided with some odd brickwork, and he'd just managed to pick himself up before hitting the concrete. He turned to locate the offending brick when a sick feeling washed over him. 

That was someone's leg. 

Blood rushed from his face and he froze up momentarily, just staring at where the unfazed leg remained, stuck out into the path from the shadow of the next cherry blossom. He should go over and apologise. What if they started yelling? He'd have to explain how he didn't speak Korean and that would probably piss them off even more...

Sicheng turned and paced off quickly. This was a stupid idea. He should've just gone home, sat down, and shut up. Everyone here would remember his face and associate his family with rudeness and brutality, this was all his fault. He was such an embarrassment. 

At the end of the road, Sicheng rounded the corner of a convenience shop and pressed himself to the brickwork, trying to calm himself. He was overreacting again. The guy was probably asleep or something anyway.  _ Breathe _ , Sicheng.

Blinking his eyes clear, Sicheng peered back into the street, this time looking specifically for that person. From what he could see he wasn't asleep, rather had one knee pulled upwards with the back of a thick book poised upon it, which he was reading intently. Apparently the words on the page were a much higher priority than minor accidental trauma. 

Well, that was that then. Sicheng should head home now and actually get on with the seemingly summitless mountain of work which he really needed to plough through. 

But he couldn't take his eyes off of him.

There were many others reading, of course - documents, orders, brochures. But this boy - if Sicheng squinted he could make out the letters on the greenish cover - was reading  _ Three Generations _ by Yom Sangseop. A more worn copy of the same book that Sicheng currently had in his bag. He hadn't had a chance to read it yet, but if the anaemic cover wasn't enough of a giveaway to the contents, the blurb had coerced Sicheng to pass it off guiltlessly. Given the severely dog-eared pages, this boy wasn't reading the historical retelling reluctantly. 

So he should be wearing a pressed shirt, have neatly combed hair and dulled eyes to slot right in with all the other Korean students. So why, rather than trying to fit in, did he look like he was purposefully trying to stick out? The more Sicheng looked, the more shocked he was that he hadn't noticed the boy before. The sleeves of his black shirt had been hacked off to reveal toned shoulders and long hair scraped back with pins to show off glittering ears. He looked like every orderly establishment's worst nightmare.

Sicheng's rogue eyes followed a passing Seoulite before he was swinging back around the corner, following his own feet straight to the boy. In that moment Sicheng subconsciously concluded that he'd seen enough drab and grey for once. 

Then he was standing in front of him, overshadowing this anomaly under the bones of a cherry blossom, without a single idea of how to announce himself. Though, evidently, the boy had already noticed his presence. 

He flicked hair from bored eyes, to fully convey just how much he didn't give a shit about whoever was standing right in front of him. Something in Sicheng objected to that. Not a second later, the boy's eyes were back on Yom's clearly delightful words. That would be about right, that was how people usually reacted to him nowadays. But if Sicheng's eyes hadn't dropped to the floor, he might have noticed how the boy's eyes stilled on the page.

When their eyes met again, it was different. Although Sicheng had no way of articulating how he knew that it was. Perhaps that was what kept him from wilting, as he usually would. His newfound curiosity to find out more pinned his eyes open as the boy seemed to be picking apart every feature of his face as if it was an abstract painting. That and the fact that on looking up this time, Sicheng noticed a shallow scab on the boy's cheek, then located more grazes all over his skin the more he looked for them. Probably too many fresh ones to be an accident, but Sicheng wouldn't know, would he?

Then the boy just asked, "Surprised I can read?"

The words didn't register at first, and he half expected the boy to go back to reading with how long Sicheng had just blankly stared back. Because obviously the bigger puzzle was this boy, being that he was a planchette on a chessboard. Then, as he abruptly realised his mistake, his face screwed up. 

"No… No." Honestly, Sicheng was more surprised that anyone could enjoy that dull book. In response, his eyebrow quirked again, and Sicheng thought that that was it, he'd blown his chance already. Sure enough, the book was more interesting again, Sicheng following the hand which the boy ran down its open page. 

"Saw you at school," he stated as he flicked over the page. Then glanced up and added with a tight smile, "Jeonghan and Jisoo's new toy."

At school?  _ Their _ school? Sicheng blinked back as the boy reabsorbed himself in his book - the book that was on the school syllabus. But… there was no way he was actually a  _ student _ there. Not looking like  _ that _ . Only in reevaluating the boy's little smile did the second part of his statement register. 

His mouth fell open. Jeonghan didn't want to go this way for a reason. 

"You," he looked up again, and Sicheng pointed his finger as if that would help him understand. "Who Jeonghan… go from?"

"He avoided me? Probably," he replied pointedly, unfazed by Sicheng's broken Korean. "I punched him in the face a couple months back." 

"Huh? Why?"

Without looking up from the dead words of a dead man, he asked, "Is Sojung still hanging around them?" 

While he was used to being ignored, this wasn't something he could let pass. "No, uh, you punched Jeonghan-ssi… why?" 

The snap-close of the book startled Sicheng, but when he once again received no answer he forced himself to lock eyes with the man who simply returned needle-sharp ones. The only reason Sicheng let him bathe in the atmosphere he'd created was now realising that this man was nothing but an aggressive idiot. Said idiot sat back contentedly against the tree and huffed.

"You know they're using you, right?" 

"Right," he echoed mockingly. Whatever this idiot wanted, Sicheng was higher than it.

It was the boy's turn to jab a finger at Sicheng. More specifically the fingers which poked out from his folded arms. "They probably saw  _ that _ and realised your family has power and want up the pecking order." Against better judgement, Sicheng glanced down at the giant silver ring on his finger. Oh, please.

"Okay, have a nice day." He fluttered those same fingers at the boy, whose smug air vanished suddenly. That felt good, even if he felt sick at the conflict.

But the boy just ripped open his book. "Okay. Fuck off, then."

The harsh tone steeled Sicheng to the spot, unable to move, just watching as the boy's eyes resumed steadily combing through the old hangul. There was never an upper hand for Sicheng.

" _ Fuck _ ."

He turned quickly, willing himself to turn invisible as he readjusted his bag and attempted to blend into the nonchalant crowd. 

Well, evidently there was a reason he'd never met anyone like that. Looking down at the ring he'd been twisting around his finger since he'd retreated, Sicheng became achingly aware of the path which had been set out for him. He was Dong Sicheng, and absolutely nothing would change that.

Still, his bag was so heavy when he yanked it off his back. Kicking off his shoes, he went straight up to his room, the only room he'd bothered to map out in the house. Minutes later, the bag was sitting idly on the double bed, closed, while Sicheng stared at it from his lit desk as his laptop booted up. 

Asshole. Why did everyone have to be a fucking asshole? It didn't matter anyway, Sicheng had already made some good friends - friends that his parents would definitely approve of. 

The start-up chime played and Sicheng swivelled in his seat, typing in the same five-letter password he'd had since he was young. Opened up a browser and a blank document, the cursor of which blinked back at him, waiting to be used for whatever Sicheng wanted to do. It could create genius if Sicheng even attempted to put his mind to it. He wanted that, he supposed. But for now, he rose to his feet and unzipped his backpack, fingers slipping on the shiny covers of the textbooks as he pulled them all out.

It hadn't been his first instinct to ask the teacher what he'd needed to do, so he was half in the dark, but if they were working linearly through the pages then… Well, there was a third of this algebra book left, at least. Perhaps it wouldn't be the same for the  _ entire _ stack next to him… Obviously they wouldn't expect him to have it all completed by tomorrow. But they'd want it done as soon as possible. So he should start right now and only stop when he needed to sleep. For the foreseeable future. With no real way of telling how long it would take. 

Half an hour later, after he'd flopped the algebra book open to the page they'd been studying today, the cursor was still blinking back at him. Each hangul character on the page had surpassed foreign and become alien. Suddenly his mind was a blank slate, and Sicheng was completely content with nothing being in it. He was going to get in so much trouble.

Nope. He dragged the book under his nose and forced himself to process the first sentence. The words could be spelt out, slowly. After searching up what two of them meant, his eyes flicked down to the actual question, yet he still had no idea what to do. With two more attempts at re-reading, Sicheng scraped his fingers across his scalp, then his forehead smashed into the book with something like finality. 

There was no point. He could ask Jisoo to translate, but he probably had enough on his plate already. Besides, that would be annoying, and he didn't want to irritate one of the two friends that he had. 

Well, if algebra was useless he might as well study his Korean, as he should've started doing weeks ago after his mum had waltzed into his room and announced that they were emigrating. It hadn't bothered him as much as he now realised it should have.

Pressing his cheek to the textbook, he stared hatefully at the small library of books on his desk. Maybe if one was a wellbeing guide he might be tempted to read it. But no, it was stupid algebra, stupid chemistry, stupid-

_ Three Generations _ by Yom Sangseop. 

The glossy cover which held such old words, spine fat and unwrinkled. He blinked at it as if it would become decrepit if he looked away, even for a second. 

Then his hands were reaching out to shove the other textbooks off of the novel, fingertip following as his eyes took in each character of the cover and the blurb. 

But it was so  _ boring _ . What did the past even matter now that the world needed doctors and engineers and investors? In search of some kind of explanation, Sicheng yanked open the paper to the first page.

"Two friends," he spelled out. He could do those words. "Stand-ing on the stone step in ...front of the inner quart-ers…" Oh wow. Did a Mandarin translation exist? Quite frankly, Sicheng was very ready to assume that there wasn't one. On closing the book, the title page sprung up from the rest. Instead of scouring the internet for the title, Sicheng pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw a Rorschach inkblot.

"What did you-"

" _ SHIT- _ "

Jolting from his seat, Sicheng grasped onto the edge of his desk to keep from falling off of his chair. Heart pounding, he strangled the mouse and spammed 'new tab' before he whipped around, scanning for what could only have been his father back from work early. It wasn't like him to be so quiet; he usually had something to complain about. Perhaps Sicheng had done something wrong.

Latching the white window, the man tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, then turned to Sicheng with folded arms. His heart skipped.

"You swear a lot," the boy commented. "I'm assuming that was a swear." 

"Huh?" Ringed hands found their way into pockets, approaching with heavy strides. Paralysis overtook Sicheng as he was stared straight through. Sized up. Analysed.

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd like that book. Still, at least you gave it a shot." 

"What? Book?" After he'd hazarded a glance behind his shoulder and came up clueless, he turned back to find the boy hovering over him, and learned what it was to be a fly caught in a web.

"I was going to  _ say _ , I didn't catch your  _ name _ ." Under the lamplight, the little knicks in the boy's skin shone like rubies. The longer he silently stood, the more patterns Sicheng noticed. Each movement a jerk, never smiling, eyes scrutinising until he saw what he wanted. Uncivilised. 

"No? Okay. Well, I'm Yuta." Eyes disappearing into his skull, he scraped a hand through his hair again. Like a flipped switch, he was no longer interested in what Sicheng had to say, looking around the room as if his next victim would crawl out of a drawer. When something sufficient was apparently located, common sense found Sicheng again. He was just playing with his food before he ate it. 

That's why he'd just introduced himself. Right before rifling through one of Sicheng's moving boxes. 

There was no way of telling what game he was playing, so he bit. "D-Dong Sicheng…"

Without looking up, he stated, "So you  _ are _ Chinese. I thought so." Only clattering filled the room as Yuta dug through Sicheng's possessions. He himself didn't quite know what was in there - would've probably left it to collect dust for another week before actually doing anything about it. But every comb of Yuta's hand still made him feel more naked to the bastard who'd invited himself into his bedroom. 

"Please… go from my house."

"What's this?" Yuta ignored him in favour of holding up a small, gold-coloured model which Sicheng had long forgotten about. Oh no. On his feet in seconds, he snatched the thing from the boy's grasp and shielded it behind his back. While he'd let go of it easily, it was replaced with an easier smirk. Sicheng shouldn't be standing for this.

"Go…" Sicheng gestured determinedly to the window with the tacky object and Yuta's smile shrunk away as he extended to his full height. Recoiling, not only for the way that Yuta stepped right into his space but for the overpowering stench which smacked him. Stale and eye-watering, repulsive and enticing, as sharp as the eyes which trailed accusingly over his body. Over the uniform which he felt so stupid in, and might as well have told Yuta as much. Yet he didn't know a single thing about Yuta. Except that he was a jackass. 

"I need your help." 

Taking the opportunity in hesitating to translate, Sicheng ripped his eyes away. When the word finally came to him, his eyebrows creased. "My… help? What… help?"

"Agree and I'll tell you." Before he could even react, Yuta repeated the statement slower. 

Whether it was being approached in the first place, or that he kept asking questions, or just the way he looked, Yuta had read him like a book. The excuse for following Sicheng home was… a compromise. There was a reason that Yuta didn't care in the way that Sicheng did. Yuta already knew that Sicheng was aching to know why. Agreeing was the condition.

"Fine. Sure. What is it?"

Yuta smirked. Then turned around and walked to the window. 

"Yuta!"

"You'll see," he sing-songed as he unlatched and flung open the frame. By the time Sicheng had pressed his nose to the glass, Yuta was jumping from the pristine brick wall to the untampered lawn beneath. Stunned, Sicheng just observed how the man stalked off, flicking his eyes about like a predator, and disappeared into the chaos of the Seoul streets.

Head still spinning, Sicheng straightened before realising that he was still holding that stupid dance trophy, giving it an angry look for the embarrassment it had caused him before chucking it back into the box. A quick glance inside told him that most of the junk in there was broken thanks to the way he'd hastily chucked everything in an hour before his family were scheduled to leave for Korea. None of it felt sentimental, he just didn't want any pieces of himself left behind in that massive house. Yuta had probably pocketed something. He didn't care.

If he'd wanted to do any work before, he definitely didn't now. He sat at his desk anyway, flicking through indecipherable pages until his brain went numb. Empty words that should matter to Sicheng but didn't. As if nothing was actually real. If he was serious about this, he'd have to get a private tutor - was surprised his parents hadn't hired one already, actually - there was no way he could learn all of this himself. The thought made him die a little inside; the excessive free time he'd had back in China was turning into a dream, and Sicheng had the impression that he wouldn't even have time for a free thought soon. Not that he really did anything productive with it anymore. Still, time was getting shorter and soon he'd be a chess piece like everyone else. 

Yet Yuta wasn't. Yuta wrote his own words, saw through his own glass. The mere idea felt very much impossible for Sicheng. But it was the only thing that stuck in his brain like fresh gum on the underside of a desk.   
  
  


***

Still lingered when Sicheng jolted awake just as the Autumn sun began to rise. Apparently he'd only gotten through twenty pages of Korean poetry before he'd passed out, not even hearing his parents come home. They'd probably assumed he'd stayed at school to eat like the other students typically did. It was inevitable that he'd have to start doing that.

Once again the stack of books was wedged into his bag, as well as extra paper and more folders. His quick shower turned into an unnecessarily long one, extended still by the amount of time he spent analysing himself in the mirror. Did so every time he passed one. If people knew they'd assume he was obsessed with himself. In reality, he was mapping what changes had taken place since the last encounter. What new pores were visible, where he'd forgotten to shave, the darkening under his eyes and the dimming of light within them as the seasons shifted. People used to pinch his cheeks and tell him how handsome his bone structure would soon be, but that didn't prove true. He still looked like a baby, which was fitting. Truthfully, he knew his own face better than anyone's. It was one of the few things he could do without pissing anyone off. 

The ring was always the first thing that he wedged on. Perhaps his father had conditioned him that way as a child, back when he would wear it on a necklace, or perhaps he'd finally grown accustomed to the fact that this name wasn't something he could just take off. 

It was the uniform that made him go from bad to worse, though. It really was too small. How was it that Yuta got away with not wearing one? On top of that, the boy had an amalgamation of silver in his cartilage and looked in desperate need of a haircut. He might as well have been a gang member, which Sicheng might've believed if he hadn't seen Yuta reading classic literature under a cherry blossom tree. 

At least he hadn't had to get up as early as he did in China since his grandfather was willing to drive him through the compact Seoul streets. If possible, school was even more stressful today, but perhaps that was just how it was. All Sicheng did was try and fail to translate everything that the teacher said, resulting in just going through the motions. More books, more folders, more work, all of which he knew he'd never get round to. For most of the day, he didn't see Jisoo or Jeonghan, though they were undoubtedly very busy and definitely had higher priorities than Sicheng's cluelessness. Though he also didn't see Yuta all day. That  _ was _ strange because not only should he stick out like a sore thumb, he also supposedly required Sicheng for something. 

So this was what occupied his empty mind, no matter who was speaking or what they were talking about. Even when one of his algebra teachers had called him back at the end of his seventh period and said something along the lines of needing to attend three extra hours of algebra a day if he wanted to catch up. Sicheng just smiled nervously and hoped the teacher would assume that he knew too little Korean to understand. 

"Head in the clouds?"

He kept walking, arms objecting under the belongings he'd retrieved from his locker. For all their wealth, Sicheng'd had this same bag for years now, and the zips were starting to tear themselves away from the stitching like rib meat. God, he was so hungry, he might stay behind today and study just to try out the food. Where even was the canteen?

"Okay then." 

His brain lingered on those words as it did when he could instantly translate them. But then he found himself slowing to a stop, pretending to examine the wall so he didn't look lost. Usually he was reading too far into things when people sounded annoyed, but girls travelled in swarms here, and that was a girl's voice. Sicheng glanced behind himself as casually as he could. Apparently he hadn't gotten away with blending in.

It couldn't have been anyone other than the girl who his eyes first latched onto. Whilst her arms were as full as the rest of the student body's, she radiated a charisma that no one else here seemed capable of. Everything about her was so strikingly perfect that Sicheng felt he should apologise simply for the way the eyebrow pointedly cocked in his direction contorted her features. Awkwardly, Sicheng let his eyes skip across some passing students before he hesitantly approached, stopping just too far away to be natural.

In place of a greeting, he uttered, "Sorry?"

"Don't worry," she replied flatly. People always spoke to him like that, as if they'd been waiting for hours and reached the answer machine. Still, it took him aback a little, maybe because she looked so sweet. So now they just stood, acknowledging each other but not much else. 

People didn't randomly choose to speak to him, especially not pretty girls. Aside from having the high exposure and glossy finish of a cut out magazine model, something about her seemed so mature. Like she believed that if she smiled too much she'd get wrinkles. His parents would love her. He himself loved pretty things. Every bone in his body wanted to tell her as much, tell her anything. But the thoughts in his head were abstract and never came out in a string of words, let alone in another language.

Suddenly she turned to him again.

"Oh. You're the Chinese boy."

Was it that obvious? Sicheng nodded weakly, and the air changed, like a knot had been loosened. Why him being Chinese made anything simpler, he wasn't sure. Perhaps she didn't feel like she had to be formal around Chinese people. Something always had to ruin a pretty girl. As if trying to divert him from that fact, his ringed finger itched and he dragged the metal across his skin to relieve it. When he glanced back up again, the girl's eyes were glued to the action, and he felt colour bleed onto his cheeks. 

Yet the self-pity didn't last long. One tight sleeve was unhinged from his side and yanked over to the looming grey lockers. Mystified, he observed the girl extracting a shiny key from her pocket whilst smoothing over where she'd pinched his flesh. Did he like this girl or not? If she was just a photograph, he knew he would. Even the artificial lighting could make her long lashes cast a fan of angel feathers across her cheeks. She was so flawless that the diamonds encircling every exposed limb, undoubtedly admirer's gifts, were actually less beneficial to her beauty. She was definitely an ulzzang. Which meant he was just another boy to her. Because she was beautiful she could get away with anything. 

Despite knowing this, the soft hand laid on his arm made his heart stammer. Then his train of thought was completely stopped when he was pulled into the shadow of the open locker. For a brief second he was in a fairytale, processing her fervent eyes boring into his like a punch in the stomach. 

Then she just said, "Yuta."

The guilty excitement wilted, and suddenly her intense scrutiny made him curl like an ant. Of course there was a reason for this. 

But that reason was Yuta. Somehow he'd rubbed his scent all over Sicheng like a tomcat. She knew something about him. His eyes snapped up, and the girl's lashes rose like a fuelled fire. 

"I thought so," the girl continued, and despite the low tone, he clung to every syllable. "Your name's Sicheng, right? Listen Sicheng, don't trust him." 

He'd never said he did. Immediately defensive, he creased his brows. What did she know? Sicheng had only known Yuta a day, was she some kind of stalker? Evidently she was using her pretty face as a mask to get something. Girls always did. 

"Why?"

Something akin to pain washed over her. "Just-"

Jumping, she spun around suddenly. Like a horror movie, the hand on her shoulder had sent his mind into panic, coming up with a thousand excuses on the spot before even looking up, though he wasn't really sure why.

"Ah, Jisoo," she said. Sicheng only deflated when he saw the loose smile playing on his friend's lips, which the girl cloned. Following the glance she threw behind Jisoo, Sicheng located Jeonghan, though the boy was already staring right at him. He would've waved but something told him that it would be wrong. 

"I see you've met Sicheng. He just transferred from China."

"Oh, really?" The girl raised a brow in his direction. His polite smile only faltered for a second before his attention was pulled towards Jisoo again.

"How's work going, Sicheng?" Jisoo asked in Chinese. He wanted to throw up. 

"Ah, it's hard since most of it's in Korean…" Also because Sicheng couldn't keep his eyes open when he looked at it. 

Jisoo barked a laugh, but Sicheng's attention was on Jeonghan. It was impossible not to notice the hand which the latter snaked to the girl's lower back. For some reason, Sicheng expected her to object, but instead she was willingly drawn away from her place next to Sicheng, all three pairs of eyes concentrated on him now. Were they a thing? Overlooking Jeonghan's tired eyes and seemingly permanent withdrawal, Sicheng supposed he wasn't ugly or anything. But he was nothing compared to her. Something was off with her.

"Didn't you study any Korean before you emigrated here?" Jisoo was smiling. 

"I didn't… I didn't know…" His chest burned with embarrassment. There was no excuse really, especially not for Jisoo who worked tirelessly. 

"Well you came to Seoul for a reason. I bet your scores are really good. Extra hours after school and you'll be fine. You should come with me. Here, I'll show you." Jisoo looped a hand behind his back and led him away from the others, over to a corkboard covered in white sheets of minuscule hangul writing. Not even the tacks were exciting, all stale gold. Although Jisoo gestured at some list of subject tutors and went into detail about the content that they were learning in each class like he was recalling a fond memory, Sicheng wasn't really listening. 

Unfortunately, Jeonghan and the girl had disappeared, so he was left to watch with loathing as the other younger students retrieved their belongings and evacuated the school. No, his scores weren't good. Not compared to the grades that kids got here. Though the media dumbed it down, even in China you'd hear stories of how Koreans were turned into husks of the people that they once were, stripped of any hopes or dreams to go for the next, actually financially beneficial thing. He didn't hate his parents. The ring on his finger proved that. He just wished they hadn't forgotten that he used to want to be someone.

Holy shit. There he was. 

A spider. That's what Yuta was. He stuck to the walls and stalked through them with purpose, and despite looking like he could rip someone's arms off, people only seemed to see him if they were looking. Any of these identical monochrome students could be a fly if they stepped just a little out of line. Eyes pinned wide, seeing more than they let on, Yuta quickly squeezed through a side corridor that Sicheng hadn't even noticed prior.

"That starts in ten minutes, your parents know you'll be there, right? Sicheng?" Jisoo's lids were heavy and his finger was jabbed into the paper like it owed him something when Sicheng fixed his eyes back on his friend. When he fish-mouthed, Jisoo slumped a little, eyes going to the boy's hands which were again playing with his ring. There was nothing he could say. He needed to follow Yuta. 

"Ah, I should get home really." Yuta's ringed hand slipped through the door and disappeared out of sight. "My parents will be angry. Sorry." 

With that, he readjusted the bag on his shoulder and maneuvered around Jisoo, half jogging to catch up with the boy who'd broken into his house yesterday. 

The door opened into some kind of admin corridor. Square, one-way windows looking out onto the concrete grounds, probably only empty because teachers had made it so inconspicuous that students assumed it to be off-limits. Of course Yuta knew it. Yet he'd disappeared into thin air. Sicheng sunk his hands into tight pockets so he looked like he knew what he was doing and strode past each window. Each gazed out onto an individual, frail cherry blossom tree, made stark against the white sky. 

The last pane wasn't a window but a frosted door, and Sicheng scanned the frame before pushing it open and onto the concrete wasteland. 

Eyes instantly found his through a cloud of smoke. 

"Thought someone was following me." 

The gag-worthy smoke cleared just enough for Sicheng to watch Yuta, pressed against the plain brickwork, take another long drag of his cigarette through silver fingers. He looked exactly the same as yesterday, only the hand that wasn't tapping off ash now had a bandage wrapped tightly around it. Sicheng didn't stare at his hand, rather at the way Yuta crooked his lip to direct the used smoke away from Sicheng. Stale and rancid. There might not be another Yuta in all of Seoul. Taking a long breath of tainted air, Yuta let his head fall back against the brick. He should ask about the girl.

"What did Jisoo say, then?" 

"Huh?" Had Yuta been watching him? The man quirked a brow and Sicheng suddenly felt stupid. "Good grades. The teacher… after-school I have to… more time." 

"Mm," Yuta mused. "You can't do that." He hadn't wanted to anyway, but hearing someone else say it felt different. He'd never had the choice, let alone been instructed to do the opposite of what had been ingrained into him.

"Why?" Yuta just shook his head and took another drag. But mid-toke, he took the thing from his mouth and pointed the burning end at Sicheng like a teacher with chalk. Smoke spewing from his mouth, he announced, "You know, I'm older than you. you should use jondaemal." 

"You're not." Tricking him into speaking formally was something that wouldn't happen, no matter how low Sicheng's dignity became.

"How old are you?" Yuta asked with a smirk.

"Nearly eighteen." 

"Nearly nineteen," Yuta gave, then he raised his brows, flicking the hair from his eyes. Despite Yuta's juvenility, a shudder went through Sicheng at having misaddressed him, knowing Koreans were very fussy about this. "Means I can buy these myself soon, 'out having to make work get them for me. Want one?" Even before the packet of  _ RAISON _ cigarettes was being shoved into his face, Sicheng was adamantly shaking his head. Continued to do so even as Yuta exclaimed, "I only let them buy the good shit, I promise," and the little cat design on the front wiggled for a while longer. 

"Really, I don't."

"Aw." Yuta wasn't put out really, just took another hit and blew it into the wind. As his eyes grew accustomed to the fog, he took the silence as an opportunity to examine Yuta. Whatever had happened to his hand wasn't the only fresh injury. More little cuts and grazes scattered his toned arms and a little grey bruise blossomed on his elbow. He had the impression that Yuta knew he was staring, but apparently didn't really care. Perhaps the man liked the attention. If Sicheng dressed like that then he definitely wouldn't.

If he was a year older yet in the same, final year group, the only conclusion Sicheng could draw was that he'd been held back. That would make sense, seeing as there was no way someone with Yuta's habits could get passing grades. But why not just turf him out while they could or chuck him out for incorrect uniform or, perhaps, smoking on school property? As the silence stretched, Yuta filled it with the hiss of cigarette ash being fed to the white brick, then flicked the thing to the floor and crushed it with a boot. Yuta could probably crush him if he wanted to. 

"Yuta… help…" Yuta looked up quickly. Sicheng searched for a suitable word, then remembered one from his first Korean business class. "Isn't a contract."

Yuta smirked so that half of his teeth showed, and Sicheng got a vivid vision of the remaining smoke transforming him into the Cheshire cat.

"What?"

"You'll see," Yuta responded in that same sing-song tone. In a split second, the grouchy, snide boy had transformed into a child, the smile only widening across his cheeks as he skipped off across the grounds. It was as if the smoke had become the sky, the hazy, white sun casting the concrete into block silver. Bemused and unable to process the switch, Sicheng just watched him until Yuta returned to slip both hands into Sicheng's and pull his legs into gear too. 

The streets genuinely had eyes here. At first it was the same route that he'd taken with Jeonghan, but then Yuta began tugging him down practically every alley that he came across, as if he was trying to run someone off their scent. Where people walked on in parallel lines in the middle of Seoul, here people turned towards them like magnets. Though Yuta skipped along unphased, even struck up a rapid conversation with a middle-aged man carrying what looked like a stapler gun, Sicheng's skin crawled. Now he had an idea why Yuta was always covered in fresh injuries. 

From this perspective, Seoul was a little less picturesque: filter out the trees and replace them with dumpsters, sodden boxes, and faded signs. Metal infrastructure protruded like fungus from dripping, devastated walls, to which was pinned fluttering posters varying from 'lost cat' to outdated government advocacy. 

If Jeonghan knew Seoul best, then Yuta ruled this flipside. Unlike in school, his head was high and he swaggered down each winding path like it was an empire he'd built himself. Struggling to keep up, Sicheng had to jog every so often and was grateful when Yuta seemed to slow as they reached a tiny, secluded yard that could only be described as an abandoned caravan park. Except the two caravans growing into the bricked off ground were lopsided thanks to missing wheels, moss and fungus growing from absent doors like a fruitful skull of the deceased, and mountains of miscellaneous litter everywhere. It made him shiver. 

"Didn't expect to see this in Seoul, did ya?" Yuta exclaimed as a burst of energy had him jumping over a toppled wall, skipping over to a caravan to run his fingers along the sodden edge, then shriek and flick the dirt off as if he didn't know what would happen. As Sicheng carefully guided his polished shoe over the wall, he had the distinct feeling of stepping into a fantasy novel. One of the books he would read as a child back when reading was fun. 

"China is not this," he sparingly replied, shooting a polite smile where Yuta grinned up at him. 

Apparently Yuta was enjoying himself. Soon Yuta would probably snap his fingers and talking animals would emerge from the shadows. Yet with the way the boy slimmed his eyes onto the cracks of visible street, Sicheng would realistically expect some kind of drug deal. Or brutal murder. God, why had he let himself be dragged here?

Hopping up to where Sicheng stood idly with half a mind to back off and call it a day, Yuta waited for Sicheng to zone back in. 

Then he said, "Hit me." 

Sicheng blinked. "Hit?" 

Yuta nodded curtly. "Yeah, hit me." 

An awkward smile twisted onto Sicheng's lips, and like a balance, Yuta's faded. In place, he grabbed for Sicheng's hand and raised it manually. 

"Really, do it. Do it." The sudden harshness sent a shiver through Sicheng's spine as Yuta just kept staring at the arm hanging limply in the air. Oblivious as a child but simultaneously more intimidating than anyone he'd ever met. After briefly running through possible reasons for Yuta's behaviour, Sicheng came up completely empty.

"Yuta…" The boy in question just held up two fingers and flexed them encouragingly. "Why am I here?" 

"Hit. Me." 

There was nothing else for it. Frustrated, he tightened his raised fist. Brought out his other arm in front for balance, then pummelled forward.

Yuta clamped his fingers around Sicheng's skinny wrist, and, utilising Sicheng's own resulting force, threw him aside, leaving the Chinese boy stumbling to catch himself before he could fall to the ground. 

As if it was some kind of experiment, Yuta exclaimed, "I thought so," and pressed his knuckles to his waist. Recomposing himself, Sicheng attempted to give Yuta a harsh glare which was easily brushed off. "You've got excellent balance and the body for it. Bit of practice and you'll be perfect." 

Sicheng paused, tugging his blazer further over his waist to eye Yuta. Body for what? Being beaten into the dirt? He was talking out of his ass. What he really wanted to know was why the hell Yuta had brought him here, because none of what he was saying was making sense. But in evaluating Yuta's words, he realised just who the boy had sounded like.

"This is about the dance...?" In place of the Korean word, he held up his hands to mimic the size of the shitty gold trophy in his room. The body for it, naturally reedy like a rattan cane. 

"Possibly?" Sicheng slimmed his eyes in disbelief. This apparently pleased Yuta. 

"You... want me… to dance?"

"No, no." Every time Yuta said no it sounded like yes. Again, he grabbed both of Sicheng's hands from his sides and suspended them like they were about to get married or something. The smell of cigarette smoke still clung desperately to his skin, as if it was trying to cover up something underneath. The second-hand smoke was overwhelming, and all he wanted to do was get away from it. Pivoting his wrists and yanking against the restraint was useless, resistance easily withstood and snatched back. Weakening with distress, he took to avoiding Yuta's piercing eyes, now so adamantly close to his face.

"Sicheng, stop, stop. Listen. Why'd you follow me here?" 

The sudden escalation had made Sicheng's hands shake. "I don't know."

"It's because- it's  _ because _ ," he grabbed both of Sicheng's wrists. "You hate doing the same shit every day. And I'm different shit." Sicheng's hands stilled. He was right. But actually hearing Yuta say it was strange. Slowly, his eyes trailed up to meet Yuta's. Any violence that he would have expected to be there was absent, instead his face was warm, expectant. Yuta was mercurial. Fingers loosened, and Sicheng dropped his hands to his sides. If he'd only come to interrogate Yuta then he would have done it by now. 

"So why am I here?" 

"I really do need your help, I wasn't making that up." Too fast to follow, nevertheless Yuta started pulling him about again, rolling up his sleeves so neatly that it seemed more like biding time. "There's a bunch of kids. They wanna call themselves a gang, but they aren't really. Iljins." Yuta looked up with a nod, and Sicheng was starting to recognise that pointed look that he gave when he was well aware that someone didn't understand what he was saying. "Not our school. Anyway. They owe me something.  _ But _ ," he kissed his teeth. "It is hard to make them listen." 

Attention diverting to the grey sky, Sicheng's lips ran through the hangul syllables as he translated them. Something about kids and violence. Sicheng sighed defeatedly. Any information that Yuta supplied was like adamantly trying to read an encyclopedia in a dead language.

"Why me?"

Yuta seemed to ponder this for a second, searching the ground as he straightened Sicheng's blazer. Then he replied without much conviction, "I know you're strong." 

After his stunt, there was no way Yuta meant physical strength. But could he genuinely mean that Sicheng was strong in any other way? It was especially prominent when Autumn rolled around. Insecurity which infested his body, blocked out every other thought. Regardless, even when there's a deep-seated doubt eating away at you, not many people care to look for it. Yuta must have seen it. Yet he'd overlooked the negativity and instead seen what it had made Sicheng capable of. Because if Sicheng wanted something - truly wanted it - he could be the best.

It was the traditional dance. You'd see them on the TV or at the pantomime, skills passed down through generations to even the youngest child. Pirouetting feather-people who entranced any onlooker. The power they had. Nothing was forced on him at that age - Sicheng learnt to appreciate them through his own will. The Dongs were a prideful family, but it wasn't the blood that made it so, more the brain. When Sicheng performed, his mind went blank. He was good. Really good. He could spin until his brain was pulp, contort his body into a pipe cleaner, and perfectly land the most ridiculous of moves like a fallen dandelion seed. Each flourish, long fingers poised and chin up, he was a diamond. But there was no career in it. People absorbed your hard work and then moved on to the next piece. You were brief entertainment. His parents were right. They hadn't been there when Sicheng had won that trophy. The night Sicheng had received it, through tears he'd promised himself to never practice again.

"What do I do?" 

Yuta definitely wasn't showing him a martial art. The moves were colloquial. You jab like this. This is a hook. Uppercut. Aim for the torso. Elbows are useful. Go for pressure points and inside of joints. Sicheng lapped it up more eagerly than any book he'd ever read. Part of him had always wanted to know how to fight. Yet the moves were subsidiary to Yuta. Rather, he was teaching a method. The calm rationale which took him over as he elaborated after each demonstration created a mask for the absolute insanity of what he was actually saying. 

"They won't go for  _ you _ , this is all hypothetical, but just in case. Let them hit you a few times so they get all like worked up, then land a nasty one in the gullet when they go soft." Blinking slowly, Sicheng followed the slow-motion fist, pretending to take note when Yuta repeated the action and eyed him. Wriggling his own weak fists, he found them permanently clammy. "I don't even know why people go for the face, unless they're really angry. It just hurts. Anyway cover your face with your fists and never move them. Elbows out." Moving behind him, Yuta tapped the underside of Sicheng's arms and he obediently steadied his stance. As Sicheng's face had a habit of betraying him when he was deep in thought, he took the opportunity to actually process the situation. 

Recalling what Yuta had offhandedly told him under the tree, he'd envisioned Yuta punching Jeonghan in the face. That's just where he'd assumed you were supposed to punch someone when they'd pissed you off. But he didn't even know what Jeonghan did or didn't do to deserve it. He wanted to ask, but at the same time he didn't want to side with one of them over the other. Maybe it was just Sicheng, but it felt like he was being kept deliberately ignorant. Obviously Yuta was a violent ass but the more time Sicheng spent with him the more evident it became that Yuta carefully considered everything he did. Always thinking, always analysing, always scrutinizing. Though, that said, his school friends weren't stupid in the slightest.

"Mm. I try to limit it to the knees but you could pull off some good kicks if you use enough power, especially because your legs are so long. Okay, power is what I think you need to focus on." Yuta nodded decisively to himself. 

"Cool," Sicheng replied, despite only half understanding what Yuta had said and having never used the word 'cool' before. Yuta smirked at him as if he knew that. 

After an hour, he found himself nodding along and confidently repeating each action, albeit clumsily. Each time Yuta would pat him on the shoulder, until finally his hand stuck there. Sicheng watched the Cheshire cat smile spread across his face again, but this time he was sure that there was no mockery in it. The genuine appreciation made him feel floaty.

"You look tired." He smiled shyly at the floor. "Alright, you're right. We'll call it a day." Though he nodded, he wanted to ask if this was a one-off lesson, then caught himself. He wanted to do this again. He'd rather learn how to beat someone in a fight for no real reason than take useful academic lessons. After this, he'd have to go home and become a machine again. God knows what Yuta would do. Part of Sicheng wondered if the man got into fights at all, or if dragging Sicheng here was just an excuse to make a friend.

“You know your way back, right?” Sicheng glanced at Yuta to make sure he was joking. He wasn’t. 

"Yeah… yeah I know." It would probably be insulting to tell Yuta that he was worried that one of the many alley dwellers were going to attack him. Mostly because he was pretty sure that Yuta was one of them.

"Okay. See ya ‘round then, Dong Sicheng." 

Obviously it wasn't as bad as he'd thought. Nothing ever was. The same belittling looks and blatant avoidance, but no one actually made a move on him. Of course they didn't; it was Seoul and the shallow sun was just starting to set. 

When Sicheng cracked open the front door, he muttered a brief greeting to his grandfather whose eyes were glued to a bank book as if it was the most captivating thing he'd ever read. As expected, the greeting wasn't returned. Smiling to himself, Sicheng quietly closed the door and dragged himself off to his room. 

Afraid that his blazer would hold the smell of cigarette smoke between the stitching, Sicheng chucked it over the top of his door, but then found himself just staring at it. It looked like a severed elephant's ear given structure. He would only be attending this school for a few months yet he wasn't sure he could manage to squeeze into the cardboard fabric every day leading up to his graduation. Maybe tomorrow he'd 'forget' it and see what happened. It was probably just talking about dance earlier, but he couldn't help thinking about that last performance. Wearing only cycle shorts, the rest of his costume was glitter and paint. Cold metallic curled across his bare skin in greens and yellows and pinks, the eyes of huge peacock feathers watching over his entire body. Iridescent glitter under fluorescent light, winking every infinitesimal movement to the audience, eyelids heavy with it.

Overused fingers grabbed the base of the bag and upturned it onto the bed, dog-earing sheets and sheets of paper underneath hardbacks, some fluttering to the floor, some clinging to the bag for dear life. Sicheng chucked the shell of the bag to the floor and stared at the mess for a moment, before picking up one crumpled piece to examine. Calculus. The paper slipped through his fingers to the floor. English. He flicked the page away. Economics. Chucked it somewhere vaguely near his desk. Ethics. Ran his fingers along the crease and chucked it back onto the pile. Gave up. Economics was really the only thing his parents cared about. 

Rifling through the pile, he extracted a biro, then smoothed out the sheet onto his desk as his computer booted up. He should probably unpack soon, usually there was a water bottle on his desk. Okay. First question.

"Using ex...tract four, calc... the number of tr- where's extract four, then?" The two sheets nearest his feet were not extract four. Neither were the first three that he picked off the top of the pile. His eyes rolled to the ceiling. He didn't want to do this at all. He wasn't even sure if he could complete it. There was no inner motivation to try whatsoever, and the only exterior motivation was not knowing the consequence if he didn't try.

By the time the computer had started up, the work was being used as a mouse pad. Once he'd figured out how to use Naver, Sicheng keyed in the expected workload of Korean students, scoffed at the results, then began to look at the most reputable jobs in this country. It seemed that they liked people to know languages but also be fluent in business. Then again, everywhere was obsessed with money, weren't they? He'd never understood that. 

It was probably more useful to him to get to grips with Korea's internet anyway. After surfing around various sites he ended up watching some random videos on YouTube, gameplay for this war game he'd never even heard of, then down a loophole of VR and streamers. All very educational stuff. Eventually he keyed in the title of his economics work, watched five minutes of the first video that popped up before he was tired again. Shares, stocks, sectors, why did it even matter? Money was just a bunch of I.O.Us being pushed around.

Why did they emigrate here? He'd assumed the infamous work ethic was supposed to encourage Sicheng, but since his parents were too absorbed in their own reputations to speak to him, it was clear that that wasn't the aim. Truthfully, Korea seemed to be making him even less inclined to work hard. 

Yuta didn't do work either, did he? Was that anything other than a voluntary choice? He could read well enough, if he could enjoy _ Three Generations _ . Sicheng's copy still lay open on the first page, only relocated atop the stack of other educational reading. Hangul ink spread across each page, staring out from the paper, waiting to be absorbed. 

Once again, the copy was pulled under his nose. Once again it was a struggle to read a single sentence. But Sicheng was dedicated to it, to finding what the hell this secret message was that he just wasn't getting.  
  


  
***

"I've been reading  _ Three Generations _ ."

"Oh, don't bother with that one, you can read a summary. The most important text is  _ The Cloud Dream of the Nine _ if you haven't already read it. You can skip  _ East Goes West _ too." 

_ Who is this guy? His hair's a mess. You know it's important to have good friends. _

Reading about yourself was oddly thrilling, like secretly listening to someone talk behind your back, only eighty years before you existed. Everything comes together. 

"It's not the reading that's important, it's the way you talk about it. Seeing as you're pressed for time, just read the important bits." Even though the teacher's eyes were on the papers that he was flipping through, Sicheng nodded, despite having no intention of following the advice. The book was still clasped firmly in his hand. "And don't forget your blazer tomorrow."

Brushing off work was easier when someone had encouraged you to. If anyone asked, he'd justify it by prioritising learning the Korean language. Though it wasn't about that, not really. He wondered if Yuta would see through that guise how he usually saw through Sicheng - as if he were cheap tissue paper. 

He'd been thinking about it.  _ Three Generations _ had acted as some catalyst, as if Sicheng had just discovered the concept of sentience. Once he'd stopped giving a shit about the material expectations that literally everyone except Yuta seemed to have of him, he'd realised things about himself that he'd never even considered. Like, why hadn't  _ he _ written a book yet? He would be perfectly capable, yet it was unheard of for kids his age. Why had he never kissed anyone? Why did he never sneak out in the middle of the night? Why had he never stolen from anyone or gotten in a real fistfight? Why was he forcing himself to live within two very close yet invisible lines? He'd been thinking about how Yuta had said all of this without a single word.

A deliberately loud sigh had Sicheng making a paranoid deer of himself, unsubsidised when he located the source - the ulzzang girl from yesterday. Tucked out of plain sight in a junction between the school's guttering and a large, thorny bush, somewhere only deliberate eyes would be able to find her. He did the same to  _ Three Generations _ , now wishing he hadn't decided to ditch his blazer. As he slipped it under his shirt, the girl flicked something into the bush and purposefully approached. Arms military-style at his sides, he plastered on a smile. Rather than acknowledging his attempt at politeness, she clamped her fingers around his arm and began practically dragging him to the front of the school, despite his badly enunciated protests. 

Hong Jisoo had the power to make Sicheng forget who he was. Though it was Jeonghan's eyes which found him first, sharp through the part in his dark hair. The simple gesture of looking Sicheng up and down spoke his thoughts for him. Provided an image like that, Sicheng could easily imagine Jeonghan recoiling in pain inflicted by a very well placed fist. Either way, having not actually done anything to Jeonghan, the idea of being chastised made him feel sick. 

With the way he'd been dragged here as Jisoo continued to lecture the line of cherry blossoms, Sicheng developed a new empathy for defendants at a court case. 

"He did have potential."

" _ Jjokbari _ ," Jeonghan spat in response to Jisoo, penetrating stare finally leaving Sicheng to instead eye the girl beside him. Noticing the divergence, Jisoo's posture straightened like a bamboo shoot, eyes darkening on the two newcomers before clocking who was before him.

"Ah, hi Sicheng. You forgot your blazer. Anyway, I've been meaning to ask you about something." Though he spoke in Chinese, Sicheng had a feeling that Jeonghan could understand what they were talking about anyway. Sicheng shook his head cluelessly, like a guilty child would when questioned about something. With that permanent smile on his face, Jisoo slipped his hands into his pockets. "I was wondering, did you already take the gaokao?"

He was expecting worse, the casualness throwing him off. Still, asking about an end of school test was a little offhand. "...No, I'm not old enough."

"Right. What grades were you getting before you came here?" Grades again. Sicheng felt the word like a pointed finger, the book against his abdomen gaining a few pounds.

"I- uh, got firsts." For some reason even first didn't feel good enough.

"And why is that?" 

Jisoo's patient smile was more of a criticism than Jeonghan's wilting stare. All three eyes skinned him, pulled out his brain and passed it around the circle for everyone to poke at. It was completely blank, couldn't form a thought let alone an answer. Perhaps his feelings were more visible than he'd thought. As if on cue, anxiety surged through him, and it took a second to remind himself that people criticised him because they cared. His ring finger itched. 

"You're really friends with him." It wasn't a question. Sicheng didn't have to follow the thumb thrown behind Jisoo's back before his body stiffened. He knew who'd be sitting there, as he'd been sitting at the corner of Sicheng's brain ever since they met. 

"Sojung was friends with him, once," Jeonghan supplied in Korean. The girl, who must have been called Sojung, stiffened. Unsaid words hung thick in the air like smoke, drawing lines across where each pair of eyes pinpointed another person. Though he was somehow part of all of this, he was incapable of understanding, and he couldn't breathe.

"I need to go." 

"Yeah."

Breathing deeply to disperse the aching in his chest, Sicheng only looked back once he was sure that the cherry blossoms were eclipsing him. Sojung's mouth was moving, Jeonghan's hand on her lower back. Sicheng couldn't even see Yuta. 

Once he'd travelled far enough along Jeonghan's route, Yom Sangseop was slipped from his blazer. Instead of thinking about the five points of a star who totalled the people he knew at this school, he once again began to drag his eyes across the lines of  _ Three Generations _ . 

"Hello, Zǔfù." The usual silence. Only his footsteps and the scrape of pages turning echoed through the hall. Set in a straight line to his room, Sicheng began to reach underneath his shirt, ready to retrieve the book where he'd hidden it out of his grandfather's sight, but froze when his name was called. Approaching cautiously, as he would a stray cat, Sicheng secured the book in his waistband and limited his movements so as not to draw attention to the fat, rectangular outline, causally cradling his hands when he stopped before him. His grandfather kept him waiting, forcing him to politely observe the ridiculous figures being poured over so intently that it was as though if he took his eyes off them for even a second then the numbers would slip right off of the page. Five fat fingers splayed across the red back, he quickly licked the fore and thumb of the other and flipped two pages forward, one back. Then finally his mouth moved.

"How's work going?"

"Good," Sicheng responded out of muscle memory. 

"Good." His grandfather still didn't look up. Like a mesmerised cat, Sicheng followed the finger which he tapped pointedly on one particular figure - close to seventy-two million Korean won. But then that finger rose, retaining its pointed position, and was directed into the centre of his shirt. Sicheng felt his stomach drop. 

"You forgot your blazer. Don't be so careless."

Deflating, Sicheng's heartbeat shuddered through his body. He knew that that was all the man would have to say so he bowed briefly, if only to allow the blood to circulate back through his body. "Sorry, Zǔfù." 

"I paid for it." Sicheng bowed again, clutching the object under his shirt like a lifeline as he quickly made himself scarce. 

The grey scrap of fabric was sent a cursory glance as Sicheng disappeared into his room, booting up the computer only to open up some old documents and Wikipedia. Then he dissolved himself into the struggles of a communist nineteen-twenties Korea. When he was this absorbed in the story, reading the hangul was secondary. Though his eyes had to flicker from the online dictionary to the pages every few words, the desire to know more spurred him on, only acknowledging the setting sun when the ink began to blend with the rest of the paper. 

This was the first book he'd become properly attached to. All of the characters were likeable, even if they were just different levels of problematic. Sicheng particularly liked Byeonghwa, how society saw him as a failure but he perceived it as idealism. The kind of person who could convince you that they'll get you the moon. 

To his right, the window frame slammed shut. 

The novel was sealed like a clam before Sicheng could even process who must have crawled through his window. 

Unfurling from the shadows like a missed weed, Yuta stalked over to Sicheng, the Chinese boy's unabashed smile broadening as the distance closed. Though like the last time Yuta had broken in, his eyes were fixed on the desk rather than Sicheng while the rest of the boy's face was obscured by a black, cotton facemask. If Sicheng hadn't have met Yuta before today, he'd probably assume he was about to be murdered. 

"I have a door," Sicheng stated. Yuta just snorted in response. It wasn't threatening anymore. In fact, every time Sicheng encountered Yuta he seemed to like him more. The harsh, worn clothes and cold metal on and in his skin, the overpowering stench of cigarettes, as they became more familiar, were less trashy and more choice. He wore himself on his sleeve like a badge, and anything else would have been wrong. Sicheng liked it. 

"Analysis of dreams in  _ One Piece _ ." 

Eyes raking up the arm that Yuta had lent on the back of his chair, all toned muscle and lacerations, the words didn't register until he glanced at Yuta's wash-blue face and processed the eyebrow which Yuta had raised at him. Shit. That was the random document he'd opened up. Without a word, he sprung up and quickly clicked off of the document, instead onto the economics Wikipedia page that he'd also opened. Even with the mask, he could feel Yuta's smile. 

"Why- why are you here?" 

"You left." Sicheng's face creased. The only place he'd been today was school, unfortunately. It took him a second to realise the connection. Yuta must have been sitting within that line of cherry blossoms after all, watching the whole scene unfold.

He blinked. "I had to stay?"

"Yeah." Yuta didn't have to say anything else, his silence said it all. A stab of guilt went through him at not having waited for Yuta. So he supposed that that made the two of them friends. It was becoming clearer that Yuta didn't have anyone else. Understandable, since everyone was apparently so nasty to him. But if he'd never had friends before… Hold on, that wasn't true.

He had to ask about the girl. It was now or never.

"Who's Sojung?" 

"Who?" Yuta replied a little too quickly. Perhaps Sicheng should just shut up. 

"The pretty girl. She... said your name." Wide eyes only found his for a second, before Yuta's gaze dropped to the floor, then he busied himself with readjusting the belt which was doing less than holding his jeans up. Blinking a couple of times, he asked, "Is she with Jeonghan?" 

"You do know her!" Yuta's bravado sagged. Sicheng should definitely shut up. But… they must have been friends, then. Was she trying to be nasty about Yuta that first time they'd spoken or not? 

They weren't friends anymore. Something had happened. She was feeding Sicheng lies. Conflict made his skin itch. 

Now the space between them was silent again, from one of the boxes the tick of some plastic clock becoming deafeningly loud all of a sudden. Instead of continuing, he watched as Yuta extracted from his back pocket the same pack of cigarettes from yesterday and shook them limply, the hollowness apparently a bad thing. 

Fingers having moved to his lap, Sicheng tapped them nervously. What he found there confused him at first, having been thrown completely off track. But then he realised it was a way into changing this uncomfortable topic. "I'm reading your book."

Yuta was no longer interested in the cigarettes. "Huh. And you like it?" Sicheng nodded frantically, glad it was obvious which book he'd meant, and Yuta's smile grew beneath the mask again. "Huh." Something had changed. Almost decisively, Yuta shoved the box back into his jeans. "Anyway, thought you'd wanna practice again. Sooner the better."

"Now?" It was a question, but Yuta took it for a suggestion. 

"Sure, sure. Same place." 

He'd been led back through the shadow of Seoul's streets to the caravan site, where they'd thrown punches until the moon had begun to shine on them. Eventually, he told Yuta what Jisoo had said to him. Yuta had then told Sicheng to punch him tomorrow. Showed him how and everything. When Sicheng had dared to ask why he'd punched Jeonghan however, Yuta had just brushed it off. 

By the time they were sweating and aching, Sicheng had almost completely forgotten about anything outside of their little world, until Yuta had said he'd be right back and left Sicheng there by himself. He'd only managed to politely stare at the brickwork for a few minutes before he was chasing Yuta's tail. 

Yuta was not fast enough to cover his face where he was pressed against the wall, a cigarette sticking out of his mouth.

"Oh my God, Yuta." 

"Mm, stop," he muttered through a mouthful of smoke, tugging the mask back over his face before disappearing further down the alley, taking the exhausted cigarette with him. But Sicheng had already seen it. The absolute patchwork which had been made of his face - split lip, stuffed nose, purple cheeks. They didn't speak of it again.  
  


  
***

The next three days had played out pretty much the same. Discovering that, whether down to trust or nonchalance, neither the teachers nor his parents monitored what he did. Not only had those people left him to his own devices, so had Jisoo and Jeonghan. The former was reduced to glimpses in corridors or blatant avoidance in class, the latter became sneers over Sojung's shoulder whenever he and Yuta were spotted together. Ironically, the people who his parents would love now hated him. Oddly, he didn't really care. Every second that he wasn't being force-fed meaningless academic garbage he was living in the fictional twenties or following Yuta. 

In fear of running into the two the next day after avoiding pretty much everyone, Sicheng had gone straight home when school had finished. Forgoing the face mask, Yuta's busted up form had scrambled through his window and, in place of a greeting, asked to read the  _ One Piece _ essay, ignoring Sicheng's protest that it was written years ago. When Yuta started correcting the Japanese spelling, instead of asking if he was an anime fan like any normal person would, Sicheng had asked why Yuta had learnt Japanese. He'd only realised his mistake long after Yuta had burst out laughing. The man wasn't a native at all. It occurred to Sicheng then that his family hadn't chosen Seoul because it had the best jobs. Seoul was a melting pot of nationalities, emigrating to the centre of business trade not for something but for anything; every single person uniting to become part of the Korean body. Perhaps he'd consider himself such if he did stay long enough to see the next blooming day.

Against Sicheng's expectations, Yuta was proud to have been mistaken for a Seoulite, and started enthusiastically initiating Korean lessons between teaching the best way to knock someone out cold. Though picking up on Sicheng's past interest, on the Saturday he'd also leeched off of his WiFi and forced him to binge the whole of  _ Noragami _ \- some new anime which the boy was already addicted to. Every spare second was occupied with Yuta, he couldn't even get past chapter six of  _ Three Generations _ let alone do any school work. But Yuta was like nicotine. 

It was easy to make him a routine. Because this was what he had wanted, deep down, all along. A crystal of freedom, buried within layers and layers of synthetic, material expectation. Until the light had caught it. Sicheng had never wanted money. He'd never wanted power. He clung to this crystal like he was holding his heart in his hands.

Holding up the golden, plastic dance trophy, Yuta smirked. He displayed the thing directly in the middle of his otherwise barren chest of drawers and stepped back to admire his handiwork.

"I'm proud of you," he randomly announced. As he watched Yuta bustle off to laugh at some of his other childhood junk, Sicheng's smile faded. It hurt. Stung like a misaligned hypodermic needle, much more than it should have. He opened his mouth to say something but instead tears sprung to his eyes. The only thought that he could formulate was that Yuta couldn't see this. Yuta could not see what he'd done to Sicheng. Opening the drawer, he pulled out a black shirt and jeans and disappeared. 

It was Sunday afternoon, and he was getting used to seeing Yuta freshly bloodied every single day. Each gash and patchy bruise spoke as much about him as what he wore and the cigarettes which now seemed to cling permanently to his lips. Sicheng didn't particularly want to condone his habit, but when he'd suddenly remembered Yuta stating that he was almost nineteen, he'd realised that there was no excuse for not getting him a gift. With no idea what to give the boy, even though he knew how it would be spent, he'd retrieved some money. Deciding that he might as well give the sad gift to him early, Yuta had lit up instantly, forcefully grabbing his face and pressing a fat kiss into his cheek. His reaction was telltale of innocence. Thankfully Yuta had ignored the way Sicheng had just stood blinking for a full minute. Not a bone in his body believed Yuta to be a bad person, as everyone else treated him. He was just kind of odd, there was nothing wrong with that.

Stubbing out his cigarette, Yuta used the hairband he'd dug out of the rubble of Sicheng's room to tie half of his moppy hair up, then raised his fist in that way which was so familiar to Sicheng now. Instinctively reciprocating, he bounced on the balls of his feet. 

"More advanced stuff today. More we can get done the better." The swing came without warning, and Sicheng narrowly managed to block it with his forearm. Then ducked another blow and spiralled around a succession of uppercuts. The sneaky elbow caught him off guard, however, and he stumbled forward, clutching his shoulder. 

"Alright? Dodge faster." Repositioning himself, he nodded determinedly. He knew that Yuta was assessing every move that he made. Perhaps that's why he kept reiterating to himself the necessity to impress him. He needed to do better than his best. 

Power was his strength. Suddenly shuffling his footing, Sicheng kicked forward with everything he had. But Yuta's eyes were sharp. He ducked, spinning low to use Sicheng's imbalance to his advantage, wiping the boy clean off his feet. 

"Wow," Sicheng coughed from the concrete floor. Head throbbing, he blinked the floating stars out of the grey sky. A wide grin appeared over him, hands pressed to ripped knees. Nakamoto Yuta cancelled out fear. Unlike academically when he had no choice, whenever Sicheng got up to try again it was because he actually wanted to. 

When Yuta's hand clasped around his this time, it took him a second to register what was wrong. 

"Oh, my ring." 

"Huh?" Practically already on his knees, Yuta quickly skittered away, scanning the mossy gaps between concrete slabs and amongst the miscellaneous trash. Honestly, at this point, Sicheng didn't really care if he'd just lost his family ring. Only watching Yuta swear as he cut his finger on broken aluminium did Sicheng realise that his parents hadn't spoken to him once since they'd moved here. Not one time. It was the only thing running through his mind as Yuta came skipping back over, holding the silver thing up like a crown jewel with that splitting grin on his face. 

The words were out before he even considered them. "Take it." 

Yuta's grin dropped. "What?" His hand recoiled like he'd been burnt.

"I don't like rings. And…" He gestured with his fingers in attempts to signify the ring being too big, but it only made Yuta cackle. Yuta's laugh was contagious. "So. Take it."

"Nice. Okay. Thanks." Dutifully, Yuta jammed the thing onto the middle of his dominant hand where it fit perfectly, taking a second to admire how the sunlight made the scratched surface shimmer. It looked at home on his hands. 

He felt considerably lighter as he got his ass handed to him for the next couple of hours, even if Yuta introduced something new every few minutes and he was struggling to keep up. It was worth it, to at least try to achieve Yuta's incremental praise, see flashes of smiles and know that he'd put them there. Even after he'd grazed his palms and bruised his forearms several times, received injuries that he'd have to hide from everyone else, he just wanted to keep going. Just wanted to hide away here forever.

"That's most of it, now." 

His stomach sunk. "Huh? We have time." Actually, the sun was just starting to set, amber breaking through the dreary greys, a dying flourish before it disappeared underneath Seoul forever. October was starting to draw in. 

"You're covered in bruises. How about I walk you to school tomorrow?" 

"Tomorrow?" Every day he left this dreamlike place without Yuta. Crawled out of their little world and back into expectation and apprehension alone. He wasn't scared of being beaten up anymore. But it still made him feel sick every single time and only got worse and worse.

Yuta caved. "I won't leave just yet." 

As if he'd done it a million times, Yuta skulked over to one of the caravan-shells, ungraciously kicked open the loose door, then plonked down higher up the slope of the mossy doorway. As Sicheng approached, he took out one of his new cigarettes and lit it up, rings turning aureate. Sitting in silence as the golden sun made fireflies of the midges and lightning clouds of the smoke, Sicheng just breathed it all in. He was so content in doing absolutely nothing.

Without a word, Yuta flicked on his lighter and held the indentation of Sicheng's last name into the flame until soot began to collect on the silver surface. From where he was hunched over, the loose, straggly hairs draped over his face, now covered in yellowing bruises and scabbed cuts, those intense features remained nonchalant as ever. Almost bored. But then Yuta's brows became taut, and he muttered, "Sicheng, what you said." He paused, dragging the long flame down the length of his finger as he considered the words. "You really read it?"

"Read…"  _ Three Generations _ . He hadn't touched it in days, since he'd actually been able to spend time with Yuta. "Yes, I read it."

"So… you get it?" The lighter clicked off, and Yuta's irises slowly rose to stare at nothing. There was something there that Sicheng hadn't seen before, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He'd known that the book was important to Yuta, but not to what extent. Either way, he did get it. He knew that it was about him. About letting go of material expectations, as Yuta had taught him to do.

"I get it." 

Yuta turned to look at him, and Sicheng felt it like a knife in his gut. Intense, unfiltered, indistinguishable emotions flittered across Yuta's face as he scanned Sicheng's own, as if he was uncovered memorabilia. He returned the stare with something shy of shock. No one had ever looked at him like this. 

Realisation paralysed him, and Sicheng forgot how to breathe. Stared at the bob of Yuta's Adam's apple, the way his black eyes flickered up and down. Clatter of the lighter an echo as his brain short-circuited, eyelids fluttering closed as Yuta leant forwards. Warm fingers against his cheek, the overpowering smell of smoke, irregular breathing, before lips were pressed gently against his.

Where before this place was a fantasy, it was as if he'd only just been born. Nevertheless, his hands curled uselessly at his sides, able to do nothing but study exactly how Yuta's lips felt against his own. So wrong and addictive. As his jaw was tilted, his fingers twitched uncertainly, Yuta pressed into the kiss a little harder, nose against his cheek, mouth opening into his own. Yuta's body jerked and Sicheng only just processed that he'd chucked away his cigarette before his shaky hands were being stilled and knees were sliding under his own. 

This swelling in his chest was all that mattered in the world. Suddenly so ready to tear out his heart and put it in Yuta's hands. To have someone's entire attention, to realise that he mattered to someone this much, made him feel fuzzy. Goosebumps bristled down his arms and legs as bliss washed over him.

The consuming want increased with every supple touch. Every open-mouthed kiss left along his jaw, pressing him harder into the thin wall. Wrestling his hands free, he pulled Yuta closer, debauching fingertips snaking up his shaky sides in return. Breathing turning ragged when Yuta sucked the skin of his neck between his teeth, leaving it stinging. Letting Yuta do whatever he wanted.

A final kiss was pressed to his glowing skin, and through heavy lashes he watched Yuta's eyes travel up to meet his. Leant into the hand which stroked his cheek. A childish smile stretched Sicheng's face, red flush prickling his cheeks at the sudden realisation of what he'd just done. There wasn't a shred of embarrassment on Yuta's face. Flicking his eyes between both of the boy's at this close distance, he only found deep sincerity. Something about that was oddly comforting. 

Then Yuta took a shuddering breath and said, "Your place." Smile faltering, Sicheng hesitated. 

It was getting cold - the aluminium damp under his fingertips and Yuta's nose was tinged pink. They couldn't stay here much longer. Still, his parents would be home by now, and there were too many loose ends and not enough good excuses. They'd have to sneak in. 

Yuta just waited for his answer. Every cell transfixed on Sicheng. A new promise. For once, the attention was welcome. If it meant being with Yuta for even a little longer, he would be licentious. His hope unraveled like a butterfly from its cocoon. Minutely, he nodded.  
  
  


***

"Alright, alright."

Afterglow vanishing, he'd found Yuta's hand and gripped it hard, ache zapping up his spine again like an unearthed wire. Fingers webbed over his face, he concentrated on anything but the gentle slide out, eyes latching hatefully onto the metallic purple packet, jagged with hasty teeth marks, silver in the moonlight like the many rings and sheen of liquid which made Yuta's hands glitter. Down the palpitating line of his unshaven body he watched Yuta roll off the condom and scrunch it in a tissue, as comfortably as if this was his home. The darkness erased blemishes, though he knew that they would be there. Fingerprint bruises on his hips, thighs, wrists, neck. Less modest bruises that had revealed themselves all over Yuta's torso. Body still sparkling with stale bliss like a grayscale film, the ribbons across his chest slowly grew cold.

A glimpse of a silver smile before Yuta's warmth shimmied between his legs again, face pressing into the junction of his neck, then making his skin vibrate with a small giggle. The following silence hurt his ears. Sicheng's room felt foreign now. When he blinked almost nothing changed - the walls were still empty, his junk remained in the boxes. Willing feeling back into his fingers, he pushed some into Yuta's hair, gauging the wiry, wavy locks, and the smell of outside which clung to him. In response, arms wrapped behind his neck and squeezed their bodies a little closer together.

So that was that then. He wasn't a virgin anymore. Though his heartbeat was slowing, it was strong enough to oscillate the boy on top of him, counting the seconds. His eyelids ticked in the silence. After how he'd been raised his whole life, it had ended up being taken by another boy. Something about that didn't sit right. He'd never even liked men before. But it wasn't like this was a one-off. Virginity wasn't something that could just be disregarded. Once it was gone, it was gone. Over the actual experience, he hadn't cared about the idea of crossing a metaphorical line until just now. Until it was with a man.

The ones who had ingrained that mindset were only downstairs. Realisation suddenly turned him cold and rigid as a gargoyle. If they'd heard anything - limbs against the headboard, suspicious mattress springs, loose tongue - he'd have no choice but to tell them. That was the way it went. He'd have to say, "I had sex with a male." The mere thought made him feel physically sick. The only conclusion he could draw was that he'd rather live on the streets than see the look on their faces. Hear them say, "That's disgusting, Sicheng." 

_ That's disgusting, Sicheng. You let a male put himself inside of you? That's absolutely disgusting. _

Past the digging ribs and soft flesh, the foreign heartbeat unsynchronized with his own was a throbbing migraine. Every pulse supplied a constant reminder -  _ it's done, it's done, it's done _ \- each making Sicheng want to recoil from where Yuta's fingertips casually brushed the peach fuzz of his jaw. Though the fingers then stilled, and Yuta stirred suddenly. Sicheng's stomach dropped, assuming that the man had somehow read his thoughts, but it was replaced with appreciation as Yuta's arms stuck into the bed and he lifted his weight from Sicheng's chest. It might have been predatory, the raking of dark eyes up the naked body before him, if it weren't for the way they finally caught and glued onto Sicheng's own eyes as if they were what he'd been searching for his whole life, after not having done so at all since they'd both climbed through the window.

He swallowed something tight in his throat, but couldn't look away as he usually would. It was like he was seeing Yuta - really seeing him - for the first time. Looking straight past where that horrifically split lip was barely healing, the knotted hair and dark circles. His eyes flickered between both of Yuta's like a metronome. So raw, Sicheng could feel them bleeding into him. Completely naked.

They began to glitter. Yuta's face crumpled like a piece of paper, two perfect streams shooting down his face so fast that Sicheng had probably imagined it. It was so surreal that he couldn't even process what was happening as Yuta's body quickly spiralled through the hazy darkness to the edge of the bed, hunched over as if staring down a wishing well. Stomach only dropping when he heard a dampened sniff. After his outline had reached up to swipe his face once, it was as if he believed he could blend into Sicheng's stark wall if he stayed stagnant enough, another miscellaneous piece of junk lost within the massive room. It was photo-still for a second. Then his shoulders trembled. 

"Yuta-" Sicheng breathed, reaching to pull the man round but then stopping himself. Something was disjointed. Yuta wasn't supposed to cry. He felt like if he looked at the man's face now, as Yuta clearly didn't want him to, he would never be able to look at him the same again. Now he could see that there was a line, there always had been a line, and he was on the edge of crossing it. 

So his hand just flattened upon the covers, some halfway between the both of them. Between where Sicheng felt sick and confused and where Yuta's scarred and bruised back shook with muted tears. He waited. 

"My dad's dying," Yuta uttered into the silence. Sicheng's hand curled up like a dead spider. Then his voice broke as he said, "I miss my mum." 

So this was what was over the line. Between the pages of the book that he'd been unable to open. Part of him suddenly wished he couldn't read. 

He was always ushered away from things like this. Pain and loneliness and death never concerned him. But only now that he and Yuta were sitting here, naked, tired, silent, did he realise just how different they were. Even when they were stripped down to skin, there was nothing similar about them at all. He didn't even try to open his mouth. He'd never learnt how to say sorry and mean it.

So no one was there for Yuta. No one at all. He swallowed the realisation of the number of times he'd complained about his own family. At least they were here. To be honest, they did help with a lot of his bigger problems. Most prominently, if their pressure wasn't there, he would have considered dropping out of school long before last week. Perhaps he would be a dancer by now. In a circus, maybe. Yet every day, Yuta made the conscious choice to go to school, even if his world was crumbling around him. 

He was staring at the floor now, face a crescent moon, eyes still glossy. It was indisputable now. Yuta was so, so lonely. 

He had no words. None at all. No part of the important rules that he'd learnt to live by would lessen the unfiltered exhaustion and defeat which was now visibly consuming Yuta. So instead he allowed his hand to reanimate itself. The dark making a zoetrope out of its slow path to Yuta's back, where his fingertips warmed against the uneven skin. Yuta didn't jolt, rather pressed ever so slightly into the five-pronged touch. They both moved with Yuta's next inhale, the tears which stuck in his throat provoking Sicheng to cling to every word as if it were the climax of a poem.

"Remember when I told you about the iljins? The gang?" He silently repeated the unfamiliar word over and over, but it hadn't stuck in his brain. But just as he was about to shake his head, he thought back to that first meeting. At the time, it was hard to believe Yuta's justification for dragging him to the caravan site. That out of everyone, Yuta had decided that Sicheng was the best person to help him out. Mostly because his explanation was so vague. The word in question he'd assumed to be Korean slang, so he'd ignored it. But there was something he'd missed. Something serious, if Yuta was bringing it up right now. Trying not to show the apprehension which bubbled in his chest, Sicheng nodded.

"They owe me something. But they won't give it to me. I  _ need _ them to give it to me."

"Need?" 

"They can help my dad." Yuta nodded, if only to force the tears from his eyes. "Yeah. But they won't listen to me. But I bet they would… um, I bet they would listen to you." Yuta breathed out, as if he'd just asked the world. As if Sicheng hadn't already agreed and his only friend wasn't sitting in his room crying over something which was apparently easily solvable. Staring into his own hands, Yuta traced his index over each individual wound: the fresher ones ranging from peach pink to ruby-red, and the various dots and patches which wrinkled his skin and shone white. Then he turned his palms down and glanced over the various silver bands, only to warm the newest addition with his thumb, rubbing clean the sharp initial of Sicheng's last name. It didn't budge when he touched it. 

"I want to," Sicheng said easily. Yuta blinked at him. He nodded, more confidently this time. "I want to help." 

Fingertips caressed the back of his neck before he let himself be pulled in. Yuta pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, butterflies twisting his stomach. Then, through an open-mouthed kiss, he said, "Do you wanna meet my dad?" His eyelids fluttered. "Now?"

Hesitantly pulling back, Sicheng examined his face. Sure enough, he could see it now, easier to decipher than any language. The raw prevalence of something foreign hiding behind what he allowed people to see, deep-rooted and even deeper concealed like childhood trepidation, except for the way his whole body leant into Sicheng. Nothing else mattered.

"Sure."   
  
  


***

The white sun had fully disappeared now, everything washed in a deep grey. If his family had heard anything, they hadn't stirred from wherever they'd posted themselves. Still, he and Yuta snuck to the bathroom to clean up, then pulled on some warm clothes before sliding back out the window, leaving the rail just ajar. 

Sicheng didn't really feel different, like he supposed he thought he would. Other than Yuta now leading him through the Seoul streets by their intertwined hands, nothing had changed between them. Though perhaps now more than ever prevailed the urge to know exactly what was happening. Why Yuta had confided in Sicheng of all people. 

Contrary to what he'd expected, however, they didn't come anywhere close to their usual spot by the caravans - where Sicheng had initially presumed Yuta lived close to. In fact, it was as if someone had directed them that way, but halfway they'd become convinced that they were lying. Still, they didn't enter the prettier part of Seoul, the paths still littered with junk, haphazard wires, and overlooked vandalism. Actually, it seemed to get worse and worse the deeper they went. He could see Yuta's confidence slowly fading, too. Sicheng squeezed his hand, but Yuta didn't notice. 

"Right," Yuta muttered, reaching into his pocket before turning suddenly up onto a path and across the short drive of a skinny, brick building. Rather than just following at Yuta's heels, he stopped in his tracks, shy of the drive. This was where Yuta lived. Yellow and black poles protruded from grey slabs of the deep garage, forgotten, council-created Xs spray-painted across the walls. Little red plaques spoke in formal hangul and a fire escape was bound with draping telephone wires. He had to blink it into perspective, it was all too surreal to watch Yuta sliding his key into the cheap lock and having to shove his shoulder into it for it to permit him access. A dampened "Hi," from inside made everything real again. Almost reluctantly, he stumbled after Yuta into the dark terrace.

As Yuta locked the door behind him, it took him a while to find the recipient of Yuta's greeting - a dark-skinned man with a brown bottle clamped tight in one hand, television box bleaching his skin. The eyebrow that he raised spoke his reaction to Sicheng clearer than words. Respectfully, Sicheng went to raise a hand, only to have it pulled up a short flight of concrete stairs. 

The landing was a square of space and one door, and presumably the next flight led to an identical one. Where Yuta had paused in front of the door, Sicheng stepped up to shoulder level. The two of them, staring at the bad paint job. Yuta was never this quiet. Never really took a second to breathe. Was it always this hard to enter his own house? Or was it because he was bringing somebody in? This was the last page, wasn't it?

Yuta turned to look at him. Face absolutely void, as if a vacuum had sucked the life out of him. Then, wordlessly, turned back to the door and knocked on the plywood, announcing his presence. Without waiting for a response, he shoved open the door. 

The air smelt stale. Compared to the outside, the room looked too small. Though perhaps that was attributed to the piles of paper and hoarder's treasure strewn across every plywood surface, blankets, clothes, bags, used food containers in place of decoration. Sicheng froze in the doorway, just looking at it all. Physically unable to soak it all in. He couldn't even pick out one distinctive thing. Like a magazine collage, every scrap of garbage overlapped to become the two-dimensional image of a garbage heap. There was so much and yet there was nothing. Giving him a curt look, Yuta waded through to one of the two doors on either side of the artificially lit kitchen. 

"Hi, Dad." 

Sicheng's stomach dropped. Of course he'd known that the man was here, but now that he'd seen this place, he almost didn't want to believe that Yuta's father lived amongst this. Was dying amongst this. Forcing himself to move, he dragged himself through screwed up documents and empty bottles, to where Yuta's voice was dampened by the little room, clutching his shoulder to steady himself on tiptoes. 

With the door cracked open a little, Sicheng could only see a slice of where the curtains had clearly been long drawn. Over the top of Yuta's head, Sicheng made sure to stay in the shadow, as if the man inside would jump out and bite him if he saw him. Though without warning, the door yawned open and an arm threaded behind Sicheng's back, pulling him into the room. "This is Sicheng."

His eyes were directed to the bed. All he could really see were IV lines draping from huge, metal stands to what must have been Yuta's father, bundled under the blanket-covered mattress. A paralysed fly in the centre of a web. Despite the nausea which surged through him, Sicheng politely smiled, though more so because that was what you should do when you meet someone. He was certain that the half-dead man wouldn't see it. For a long few seconds, his ears rung with the tinnitic silence. Until, in response, a single grunt was given. 

It was so, so lifeless. The only thing that moved was the persistent tremor of Yuta's palm against his back. It had been like this for a long, long time. Waiting in the deathly silence with bated breath. Blinking in the darkness, Sicheng slowly felt every scrap of hope for Yuta's cause dissipate into nothing. Yuta filled and expelled his lungs.

Regretfully, a whispered proclamation of hunger made Sicheng sag with relief. When he went to return the sentiment, Yuta had already disappeared through the door, leaving Sicheng looming at the end of the bed. Was the man even conscious? Sicheng shook his head, shutting everything out for a second. What the hell was he doing here? In a foreign house in a foreign city, at midnight, with no idea what was going on. Body slack with fatigue and doubt, Sicheng's eyes flickered between the door and the man, before scuttling out of the room, clicking the door shut. 

He turned in time to see a black polo with bold white hangul printed on the breast flying through the air to overshoot the dresser, sliding out of sight behind it. Only meeting his eyes for a second, Sicheng saw a flash of red-stamped lettering before the document was quickly filed between two cabinets. He pretended not to see it. 

Steadying himself on the wall, Sicheng stepped into the linoleum kitchen as Yuta threw empty cartons and receipt-riddled shopping bags to the ground in search of a single saucepan, which was then located on the top shelf of an otherwise empty cupboard. Soup. The can had been deposited upon the only clear space on the worktop. Poised like a crab, Yuta scanned around for a second before chucking himself at the sink, pulling a dirty spoon from a bowl of mashed banana and hastily running water over it.

It was just hard to watch. Instead of idly watching Yuta rifle through his own kitchen, his attention diverted to the tiny, fabric sofa pressed right up to the wall, blanket half draped over a coffee table piled with used plastic cups and fat books, mostly nonfiction by the looks of it. On the top lolled one which he knew the title of without even having to check. Even from here, he could see that it was marked with scrawls in every colour of the rainbow, in a language which he couldn't even attempt to read. All the evidence was here, so perhaps he just refused to believe that Yuta could really live like this. 

He quickly looked back down as arms slipped around his waist, forehead pressed to his back. Eyes on the soup as it bubbled away, not even hungry. Yuta turned his head to press his face to the exposed skin of Sicheng's neck, then squeezed his arms tighter. It felt kind of wrong. He felt like an alien here. He'd long acknowledged that there was no way he could understand this situation, now it was more like he didn't even want to try. He felt sick.

"Should be done now," Yuta muttered, but made no attempt to move, just breathed into Sicheng's skin. Sicheng waited patiently. 

The soup was flavourless, but when Yuta had gone to get salt he'd only come back with an apology. It was easy to forget that someone else lived with Yuta, even if he was uncharacteristically silent. It was as if they hadn't actually come to see his father. Sicheng was almost glad that he couldn't speak to him. He didn't ask what the man was suffering with, who cared for him, where their rent money came from, or where his mother had gone, because he found that he didn't want to know. This sofa was uneven, the soup was tasteless, but Yuta's silence was comfortable. 

"Sorry." Sicheng shook his head minutely in response. Soup finished, Yuta put his bowl on the floor, spoon clicking through the void room. "Yeah. I gotta say it. Too soon to bring you here. Just, I don't know how much time I got left." His fingers tapped on his chest as he took another long breath, then snaked down his arm, four trails of bloodless white. "I just- yeah. Yeah. But you- You-" He shook his head smiling to himself. Glanced up, down, and back up again, his gaze sticking this time. Eyes honeying, as if he was trying to absorb Sicheng's features, cast them in his mind. At the same time that it made his heart erratic, something else twisted inside his gut now. "You're not gonna eat that, are you?" 

As soon as Sicheng had awkwardly set the bowl down, Yuta had planted his head on his chest, tucking himself into Sicheng's body and pulling his arms around him. Closing his stinging eyes against the artificial light, Sicheng just clocked the rapid velocity at which Yuta's heart was beating. He hadn't noticed how unnaturally fast it was earlier, when the man was lying naked across his body and he'd found himself unable to breathe. The weight felt good now, though. Grounding.

"Still think you should've punched Jisoo." Sicheng slapped his shoulder, and Yuta wiggled to look up at his face. "He  _ was _ using you. He's as much of an ass as Jeonghan." 

"Why… What did Jeonghan…?" 

Much like last time he'd asked, though he hadn't thought much of it then, the brightness faded from Yuta's eyes. The hand which homed Sicheng's ring was run across his torso, Yuta's face pressing in closer. In something so close to a whisper Sicheng assumed that Yuta was secretly hoping it wouldn't come out at all, he said, "Sojung." Something strange washed over Sicheng at that, provoking him to squeeze tighter too. Five points of a star. "But y-" Sicheng's eyes darted down to watch Yuta's squeeze shut again, his heartbeat thundering now. "You get it."

"I get it," Sicheng lied. His ears hissed in the following silence.

"I think we need to go." 

"Where?" 

Wide-eyed and without another word, Yuta began to scramble off of Sicheng, throwing off the old school jumper that Sicheng had lent him to expose his scabby arms. 

"We need to go  _ now _ . You have to come. Come." He held a hand out, Sicheng scrambling to get to his feet while readjusting his clothes. They'd agreed. Sicheng would follow him. Even if he did catch the clock ticking past two in the morning as Yuta dragged him back through the door. 

As opposed to the stealth that he'd used to sneak through Sicheng's house, only speed concerned Yuta now as he darted to the front door, jamming the key in the lock and wrenching it open. Someone screeched Yuta's name and Sicheng jumped, clinging to the back of Yuta's tank as the landlord began to rise from his post. While Yuta didn't even acknowledge the man, like a petrified rabbit Sicheng couldn't take his eyes off the silhouette skipping with the television across the short distance, until he was yanked through the door and Yuta locked that nightmare away.

His blood was already pumping with adrenaline, as it always seemed to around Yuta. As he gauged the after-midnight hiss of distant cars and pure night air, he realised that this was a familiar route. This time, Yuta wasn't striding as he usually did. If anyone was about, his black clothes would've let him blend right in to the rest of the street, though no one seemed to be here. 

Through panting breaths, he mumbled, "Remember what I taught you. Knees bent, arms-" 

"Wait, wait…" That’s what they were here for? "We're that- doing that now?" 

"We have to, Sicheng." He paused, then tagged, "I don't know how much time I have left." 

It had only been a week since he’d first met Yuta. Under the cherry blossom tree, reading  _ Three Generations _ and telling him to fuck off. Each of those days there was always a new cut, a new bruise. Every loose end was another urge to uncover what mystery was rooted underneath. His father did not tie up those ends. Perhaps this was it. Whatever the hell was waiting for them was the whole reason Yuta had approached him in the first place. He’d given everything for this. He had to be ready. He'd met him as a bud, and this was where he would blossom. 

He was terrified. 

"Okay," Yuta whispered, stopping shy of the short brick wall. The abandoned campsite, which had become like a second home. All along, Yuta had hidden his secret here? 

Yet, like his room, something about this place had undoubtedly changed - become impossibly more surreal to the point where it was disconnected from what Sicheng believed to be real. Caravan windows shining with early morning moonlight, but otherwise completely imprisoned by shadow. The moss and trash which he knew littered the floor had become invisible. Of course something could be lurking here, something Sicheng had failed to see all along. "The iljins come here every day, a few minutes from now. They never listen to me, but if they see you… I'm almost certain. But just in case, you know what to do." 

Visibly wiping sweat from his hands, Yuta stepped over the wall and into the abandoned area, every minute sound amplified. The indoor shoes he'd hurriedly slipped on made it very easy to treat lightly, scampering across the concrete to the caravan opposite the one Yuta was peering past. This place used to be so alive, now it was too silent. 

Grey static clouded his vision in the dim light, pulsating in time with the beat of his heart. He'd always wanted to learn how to fight. Actually using the skills was a different matter. In fact, now that people could be lying in wait for him, everything Yuta had taught him seemed to dissipate in the face of fear. Yet somehow Sicheng was exactly the person that Yuta needed. How was Sicheng, an upscale student from China who barely spoke Korean, supposed to negotiate with whoever about something he wasn't even sure of? 

He realised with a jolt what Yuta had said. They came here every day. So this  _ was _ the final secret. Why Yuta started every new day with a new patchwork of red across his skin, despite knowing how to fight. Sicheng tried not to imagine what these savages would do to his unmarred flesh, like fresh meat wandering right into their home. Squeezing his eyes closed, he pressed his brains for anything that he could remember. Hands up. Knees bent. Go for pressure points and joints and use your legs. Raising an arm where it had become rigid against his side, he discreetly practiced some of the moves. What was it Yuta had said he'd needed to work on? Power. He repeated the word to himself like a mantra. 

He'd be ok if he did exactly what Yuta said. Sicheng trusted him more than anyone. It was only a few hours ago that he'd let himself be completely vulnerable to whatever Yuta wanted to do with him. Suddenly reminded of what they'd done, a blush prickled his cheeks like a slap on the face and he glanced at Yuta. The boy was frozen a few metres away, staring into the darkness, like if he took his eyes off of it for one second it would eat him alive. Any embarrassment that Sicheng felt was instantly replaced with concern. When Yuta finally moved, it was to raise a hand to his mouth, shaking so violently that it couldn't have just been the cold. This broke his determined bravado and he frowned, patting his pocket before glancing up at Sicheng.

"I left my cigarettes at yours." 

"It's okay," Sicheng assured automatically. There were worse things that his parents could find if they happened to scavenge his room. It really wasn't a big deal, but Yuta was full body shaking, tucking his hands under his arms as he faced adamantly away from Sicheng. He was starting to think that maybe neither of them wanted to be here.

"Yuta." The boy hummed in acknowledgement. "We can come here tomorrow-" 

Before he could finish, Yuta shook his head adamantly. "We don't have time. They'll be here any minute. Just- just wait a minute." 

Conceding the dismissive hand which Yuta stuck out, Sicheng's head fell back against the caravan, eyes flickering through the darkness. Fatigue was finally starting to wear at him; it was probably getting on for three now. He had school in a couple of hours which meant he was going to be a zombie for the entire day. Not that it would matter. Students had been spending the entire year already, their entire school life in fact, preparing for these upcoming final exams. Sicheng had had a week. With exams being graded from best to worst, there was no point trying. He couldn't compare to them, no matter how many firsts he used to get. 

He wouldn't have realised he'd fallen asleep if it weren't for the fact that the moon was now only just visible past the brickwork. He half expected Yuta to have given up by now, maybe taken to practicing his skills or examining the area. But, on propping himself up against the weak aluminium again, Sicheng saw that he was in the exact same place, with the exact same expression. He looked feral. It had been more than a few minutes.

"Yuta." Eyes flicked to him and right back again. "Yuta, let's come tomorrow." 

"They'll come soon." 

"Not today." 

"They  _ are _ coming."

It was something about the adamancy of his words. The fire in them. Eyes glazed, transfixed on the darkness, never looking at Sicheng. It was at that moment that he finally realised. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong. It should've been glaringly obvious. The one secret that Yuta still hadn't told Sicheng. All Sicheng could do was stare at him. Stare and stare and hope that there was a single part of his body that said otherwise, but there was only a dying crystal of hope glittering in the boy's eyes. Everything else was broken and twisted, abnormal and shaken. Something was wrong. He'd known it from the start.

"Yuta. No one's coming."

For a split second, Yuta's eyes darkened, but he blinked it away. "Yes they are." 

"No. No one's coming. Because. There is no one." 

In the break of silence which followed, Yuta jutted out his jaw. "Yes there- Yes there is. Why would you… Why would you say that?"

"Yuta."

"Stop it," he whispered. "How could you say that?"

"How could you lie?" 

Recoiling like he'd been slapped, Yuta finally looked at him. A completely different person stood where Yuta should have been. Eyes glassy, chest heaving, he looked like a petrified child. A child, that's what Yuta was. Children lied. 

He was unable to look away. Like finding a favourite painting destroyed. So instead Yuta tore his eyes away to his own hand, pressing a thumb into the syllable of Sicheng's last name. 

Everything was a lie. "Why did you ...want me really?" 

Yuta shook his head. Shook it again. But Sicheng knew. From the way Yuta was still caressing his ring. Stroking it like it was the crown of his newborn baby. His heart dropped.

"It wasn't me."

"Why don't you  _ believe _ me?" 

"Because you lied to me!" With every hesitant shuffle closer, the gap between them closed, with every step another piece of trust broke away. "You didn't like me. You liked my money."

"That's not true," Yuta spat. With the way his finger shook when he pointed it Sicheng could've almost believed that he hadn't been carrying out exactly what he'd warned Sicheng to avoid.

"You're a…" He hissed, the language gap was pissing him off. "You're a fake." 

" _ Sicheng _ ," Yuta yelled in clear frustration, the boy in question flinching back at the sudden hostility. The world was off-kilter. It was too dead for the charge between the well-off boy and the poor kid a metre in front of him. For all the trust he'd put in him, Yuta had turned out to be a hypocrite. That made Sicheng the idiot. 

But ironically, Yuta was angry. Body shuddering with it. Heart hammering with it. The crystal of hope had died. There he was, the real Yuta. No masquerading under a bravado. He'd finally found what Yuta was, and he was raw, immortal anger. He was insane. 

More than anything, Sicheng was scared to death of him.

By the time he'd closed in completely, the man-made emboss of the caravan restrained him perfectly. Hands comfortably at his sides, Yuta stepped right into Sicheng's face, looking him up and down like he was a prisoner, a broken possession. While he'd spent the last week only thinking about Yuta, now his mind could do nothing but short-circuit, unable to do anything but watch. Observe the split of his lip stretch as his mouth cracked open and he muttered empty words.

"I've lived in Korea for twelve years and what has it gotten me? Nothing. You've lived in Korea for one week and what has it gotten you? Everything handed to you on a fucking silver plate."

Guilt like acid stabbed his heart again, but he fluttered his eyes closed. He's a liar. He's a liar. 

"You can do anything, Sicheng. Anything. Some of us aren't so fucking lucky. But Sojung was too blind to see that, and you're too fucking blind to see that. Open your fucking eyes!" 

Hands were on the side of his skull. Adrenaline zipped up his spine and he reeled. Screaming at Yuta to fuck off as he twisted from the man's grasp. Once free, he elbowed past. Got two steps before fingers dug into his shoulder and before he knew it the ground was gone from underneath him. 

Before he could nurse the wrist he'd fallen strangely on, he was yanked up by his lapels, forced to focus on the silhouette before him. There was nothing there of the Yuta he knew anymore. 

In a panic, he dug his fingers hard into where he assumed the eyes were, the grip loosened like a prodded anemone and Sicheng hit the floor again. He found his feet, testing his hand and stared back at where Yuta was bent over double. There was no way he could outrun Yuta in his own territory. Couldn't beat him at his own game. So, eyes wide and heart in his mouth, he raised his fists to his face as Yuta straightened. 

Two blocked jabs and an uppercut, a failed attack to Yuta's side. He tried for a kick but Sicheng returned a knee to the side. Resetting, Yuta struck high again but Sicheng ducked, uppercutting his gut only to receive an elbow in the neck. Reeling backwards, his back hit a wall. If he could distract Yuta long enough he might be able to disappear. All he wanted to do was get the hell away from the boy approaching him, all muscle and scars and burning hot rage. Instead of moving right now though, he pinned his arms to the wall despite watching Yuta raise a bloodied fist, only to dart aside so that the punch met coarse brick. A well-timed shove saw Yuta faceplanting the brickwork and Sicheng turned to run.

He only got a few paces before he too was shoved, stumbling to land awkwardly on one knee. As Yuta stumbled ahead of him, he scrambled up despite his protesting leg, only to be pinned to the wall with a forearm against his throat. As he clawed at Yuta's arm, he was forced to look at the man, face hashed with blood from the bricks, full-body trembling. 

On autopilot, his mind separated him from this situation. Every night, same time, Yuta came here alone. Allegedly. While street fighting would explain every day's fresh injuries, some things still weren't adding up. So he needed money to help his father. Surely he was on the right track from the start? Why make up all of this shit about a gang? 

There was nothing logical about this. The skin under Sicheng's face was starting to prickle with asphyxiation, Yuta's arm stiff as stone. There was nothing in his eyes anymore. They were dead. Overcome with a sense of inevitable duty which must be carried out. He wouldn't stop until Sicheng paid up. He had no control.

" _ Yuta _ ," he tried, only for his voice to come out as a rasp. If Yuta didn't snap out of whatever irrational anger was manipulating him, Sicheng wasn't walking away with anything that he would be able to hide. Nobody could ever be allowed to see it. Then he could safely crawl back to Jisoo and Jeonghan and Sojung and tell them that they were right. God, they were so right. But Yuta didn't move.

He kicked up his leg between Yuta's and he gave, curling in on himself, Gasping for air and coughing up his lungs, Sicheng stumbled forward. This was a fucking nightmare. Now that he wasn't blinded by adrenaline, he could actually think straight. 

Of course he'd lied. Anyone would lie if they were terrified for their future. Yuta's future looked pretty short from where they were standing, while Sicheng had had his planned out for him from the start. Yuta was the first person to open his eyes. He loved Yuta for that. 

"I'm sorry." 

Moonlight like a spotlight pouring onto him, Yuta turned towards him like the second hand of a clock. Once the words struck their target, the world froze. He was a shell. A vase made to hold something beautiful but instead holding ashes. Every feature artificial, carved by a hand that could only hate. There was no feeling. There was only knowing and executing. Something else was controlling him. 

"Yuta… Yuta. YUTA-" 

He was easily thrown to the floor. Blinking stars from his eyes where his head had hit the cold floor, he couldn't anticipate the way his arms became caged between bent legs, dead weight on his chest. When the face he knew so well finally swam into view, it was paired with a vice-like fist gripping his face and angling it up. Blood smeared across his cheek. Twitching. An arm pulled back like a string bow and the last thing that Sicheng caught was the flash of moonlight on his own ring before white flashed through his brain. Squeaking, he recoiled. After a few shaky breaths, a hot, thick stream surged down his cheek.

Above him, a gasp, palm on flesh. He couldn't open his eyes for the searing pain behind them, the throb of his brain and the stinging of his cheek. But when the weight shifted he forced himself to look up. 

Eyes wide and glittering with tears, ringed fingers masking an agape mouth. Cowering like a widow. Like he was only just seeing what had happened, just an observer on the sidelines. As if eyes suddenly opened across every surface, Yuta scanned all around him, every poster, every brick, every smashed window and piece of trash, then back down at Sicheng, where his shaking fingertips now smeared the gushing flow of blood. 

Without another word, Yuta staggered up, looming over him. From the look on his face, Sicheng found himself questioning whether he was actually still alive. He scrunched his eyes closed. When he opened them again, Yuta was gone.

Once the pain had subdued to a dull throb, Sicheng pushed himself up onto aching arms. Limped over to the caravans using the grey infrastructure and loose cables as support. Leaving a blood trail across the off-white aluminium until he could place two hands on a silver glass pane, see his wobbly reflection stare back at him. 

He was ugly. Eyes bloodshot, lids incrementally sticking together with fatigue. Full lips dark with asphyxiation. Messy hair splayed with sweat. Fat face a full moon. Hickeys spattering his neck like disease.

Thick blood bleached black. He leant into himself. Swiped the welling away over and over until he could see the gouge beneath. The most perfect of circles haloing precisely cut lines exactly in the centre. So deep that he could pick out each individual incision upon his skin. It would scar over, the cleanest pink high on his soft cheek. The single initial of his own last name. 

***

見ぬが花

not seeing is a flower

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This is my first longish fanfiction because I always spend so much time on them, but hopefully I'll be able to complete more in the future! Any comments and constructive criticisms are really appreciated and if you have any questions about this slightly dubious fic I may or may not answer them ;).


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